


The Life of Amy and George

by Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 16:19:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9910880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds/pseuds/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds
Summary: Amy was just an ordinary girl, until she meets a guy in a chance meeting. But he's more than just a guy, he's a wizard, and he introduces her to a whole new world. Her life will never be the same again.





	1. A Chance Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts about 5 years after the Battle of Hogwarts. I initially planned in it being set in 2018 (with the timeline of the books having been moved forwards 15 years, so the Battle of Hogwarts took place in 2013 rather than 1998). [However, I started writing it a few years ago, so the odd reference may be anachronous]. I've tried to write it with the books being canon (though I may accidentally contradict them in places). [So for this story, Cursed Child isn't canon; simply because I started writing this first, and it would clash in places where there's different storylines, or coincidentally similar storylines].
> 
> Also, I do intended on continuing this, just not sure when (but hopefully will update in the not too distant future). The plot I have in my head covers decades, and to be honest, it might be decades before I finish writing it. I've also started plotting a sequel spin-off, but I should probably leave that until I finish this...

Chapter one- A chance meeting

Amy was just an ordinary muggle. Well, an ordinary girl, because she wasn’t even aware of the fact she was a muggle, that there even was such thing as a muggle (or a non-muggle). In some ways she felt she wasn’t “normal”- she didn’t always fit in and thought she did things differently to everyone else- but to an outsider, she was the depiction of normality. That though, was before she discovered a whole other world of “normality”, a whole other world of living, right under her nose.

It was a cold January day as Amy browsed the shelves in the London department store. It was already starting to get dark outside (not helped by the overcast grey sky blocking out most of what remained of the day’s sunlight) and she knew that soon she’d better face the bitter chill of the oncoming evening and make her way back to the train station. She hadn’t bought much, being on a student budget, but had decided to take the opportunity to catch the train down into London as she didn’t have any lectures that day and her work load was less than usual due to having just finished her post-Christmas exams. She was in her fifth year of a medical degree and had been quite looking forwards to having a relaxing day out. She’d had anything but that. The shops had been chaos, her feet were sore and her thighs were hurting as she had ended up pulling a muscle in them at her kickboxing class the previous day. She looked around for a sign directing her to the toilet- she was desperate for a wee. Eventually she located a floor plan. The toilets were on the fifth floor and she was on the first. Typical. She went over to wait for a lift. Usually she avoided using lifts wherever possible. She hated them. She partly blamed this on the fact she had two brothers. At first this seems a strange explanation, but makes more sense when you consider that, when you grow up with two boys, you end up watching a lot of TV shows aimed at boys. These generally feature hero types- Thunderbirds, Fireman Sam and the like- and hero types need things to be heroic and save people from. Sometimes these are fires where the people requiring rescuing have managed to get stuck in a lift (obviously oblivious to the fact that you shouldn’t use a lift in the case of a fire) and these episodes had had a profound effect on Amy’s trust of lifts. On this day however, she was willing to put her dislike aside as she did not want to walk up all those stairs to get to the loo. A lift arrived and she stepped in, closely followed by a man. He pressed the button for floor five, the doors closed and they started to ascend. 

Amy started to inspect her fellow lift occupant. He was quite tall, around her age (maybe a little older) and had spiky ginger hair sticking out of the front of a black woolly hat, placed wonkily on his head. He was dressed in a pair of slightly faded jeans and a black jacket which was left unzipped, revealing a green knitted jumper with a “G” on in red (probably a Christmas jumper). Strung on his arms were a couple of bags of shopping, with what looked like a toy magic set protruding from the top of one of them. He turned and smiled at her. It was a kind smile, slightly cheeky looking, but there was something in his face that made him look worn, tired, older than his years. Amy smiled shyly back, trying to think of something to say to start a conversation. 

Just as she plucked up the courage to start with a “hi”, the whole lift shook. She screwed her eyes shut, just managing to keep a squeal of terror from escaping her mouth. The lift stopped with a jerk, causing her to fall sideways but the guy’s gentle grip caught her arms and steadied her. Amy slowly opened her eyes and found herself gazing into his face, looking down on her with a look of caring but also reasonable calm.  
“You OK?” he asked her, slowly letting go of her arms now that the lift was stationary.  
“Yeah” she muttered back. “Thanks”.   
“No problem” he replied, smiling the same cheeky smile that he did before, “I’m George by the way”.   
“I’m Amy”  
“Well, it’s nice to meet you Amy”  
“You too” Amy smiled, gaining in confidence and starting to get over the shock of the lift stopping. They started to discuss what they should do next. “Any clue what’s up with it?” she asked George, who was jabbing at all the buttons for the different floors. It didn’t seem to be making any difference.  
“Nope,” he replied “I’ve never been any good with mug… with technology.” He tried out the alarm button at the bottom of the controls but received no reply. “Guess we’ll just have to wait for someone to come and fix it.” He sat himself down on the floor. Amy looked round warily before doing the same.  
“I hope they come soon”  
“Why?” asked George, “Is there somewhere you need to be?”  
“Not really but… well I’m not the greatest fan of lifts and I kind of really need a wee”  
“Awks” he replied. “Well I guess there’s not much we can do. We’ll just have to wait. I’m sure they won’t be long. They’ll have systems to tell them that the lift has got stuck.”  
“Hopefully, yeah” said Amy, relaxing slightly.  
“What brings you here anyway?”  
Amy told him about having come down from uni. They chatted about their day. Amy peered at George’s shopping bags, trying to guess about his life.   
“That for… for a relative?” Amy asked, pointing at the magic set which was now practically falling out of its bag.  
“Erm… no. It’s for… market research. I own a… joke shop you see.” He tried to stuff the magic set bag down into the carrier bag. In doing so, he tore the side of the bag slightly and a mascara rolled out onto the floor.  
“Oh” sighed Amy, looking disappointed “Is that for your girlfriend?” George quickly grabbed the mascara and shoved it back in the bag.  
“No!” he exclaimed “No, it’s for market research again. I’m working on… items disguised as other items so I’ve bought a few things to use for ideas. I don’t have a girlfriend. Not at the minute…” He saw Amy smile at this and they both turned away, blushing.  
“So…” Amy started after a short, awkward silence “Where abouts is this joke shop of yours then?”  
“It’s down a little back street just out of the centre” answered George, looking slightly awkward and attempting to be vague.  
“Family business?”  
“Erm… well I set it up with my twin brother” he mumbled quietly, avoiding her gaze.  
“You have a twin? Cool!” she enquired excitedly then stopped suddenly when seeing the look on his face.  
“Had a twin. Fred. He… he died”   
“Oh. I’m so sorry. What happened to him?”  
“He was killed in… in an explosion. Five years ago this May”  
“An explosion?”  
“Yeah. I’m sorry but I’d rather not talk about it”  
“Yeah of course. I’m sorry”  
“It’s ok. It’s just that I really miss him. He was always there and it still seems weird being on my own.”

Neither of the two said anything for a while. George suddenly stuck his hand into his pocket.  
“Sorry for dampening the mood.” He held out a handful of brightly coloured sweets. “Want one?”  
“Thanks” replied Amy, taking a yellow one. She was just starting to unwrap it when George shouted “Wait!”  
“What is it?” she asked, startled.  
“Erm… you don’t want that one, it… those ones taste funny. Here, have one of these” he said, taking the yellow one back and passing her an orange one.  
“Thanks…” Amy replied, sounding unsure now. She watched him unwrap his chosen blue sweet and put it in his mouth before doing the same with hers. It tasted nice, but like nothing she’d tasted before. Definitely not of orange.  
They both sat there on the floor of the lift, sucking at their sweets. Amy was trying to think of something else to say when her sweet slipped down into her throat and she started choking. George was quick to start patting her on the back and soon enough the sweet shot back up into her mouth.  
“You OK?”  
“Yeah” panted Amy, trying to get her breath back. She cringed to herself. Here she was, sat with a good-looking guy and already she had managed to choke on a sweet and upset him by asking about his dead twin. Could it be possible to embarrass herself further? She looked at the floor, trying to hide her blushing and carefully sucked at her sweet, trying to prevent a repeat incident. George saw her blush and giggled quietly to himself, absent-mindedly brushing his ginger hair backwards. Amy looked up at the sound of his giggling and suddenly sat motionless in shock. He had slightly displaced his hat, revealing a gap where his left ear should be.  
“What… what happened to your ear?” she gasped  
“Oh yeah…” he started, realising what it was that had startled her. “I’d forgotten about that…”  
“Forgotten?” Amy exclaimed  
“Yeah, well you know what they say, ear today, gone tomorrow” he joked, cracking her a cheeky smile. Amy said nothing at first, too shocked to laugh at his pun.  
“What… what happened to it?” she eventually managed to stutter.  
“It’s kind of a long story…” Amy waited for him to finish his sentence but as the seconds passed, gathered he wasn’t going to and changed the angle of her questions.  
“Well, didn’t you get offered a prosthetic one?”  
“Prosthetic?”  
“Yeah, you know, like a plastic one?”  
“I don’t think there’s much they can do. Besides, I’ve got quite used to it now. It’d seem weird having two ears again after five years of only having one.”  
“Was it…” Amy began, starting to ask him whether it was connected to Fred’s death but then thinking better of it.

Once again they both sat in silence, sucking at the remains of their sweets. George looked at his watch.  
“What time does this shop close?” he asked.  
“5:30pm I think. Why?”  
“Because it’s past twenty-to-six and I haven’t heard any sound of anyone trying to sort the lift yet.” Amy had almost forgotten about the lift and started to panic all over again.  
“What happens if no one knows we’re here? They’ll be packing up now and might all be leaving soon!”  
“Surely someone will have noticed the lift isn’t working. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.” Amy didn’t look too confident about that. Suddenly her face lit up.  
“I know” she exclaimed, rooting through her bag, “We’ll ring for help. Like the police or something. They’ll help us!” Her face fell as she pulled her phone from her bag and started pressing buttons on it. “Oh no! I’m out of battery again! I knew I should have charged it before I left!” She looked at George. “What about your phone?”  
“I err… I left it at home” George stammered, unwilling to point out the fact that truthfully, he didn’t own a mobile phone.   
“Great. We’re screwed then. What are we going to do?”  
“I’ll try the alarm button again” suggested George. “Hello. Anyone there?” Still no reply.  
They both sat in silent despair. Amy slowly began to cry and George wrapped his arm round her.   
“It’ll be OK. I’ll get us out of here, I promise.” She huddled closer to him as her tears continued to drip down her cheeks.

All of a sudden the lights in the lift went out, leaving the pair just illuminated by the pale glow from the lift buttons. George felt Amy tense in his arm.  
“Don’t worry, I think I’ve got a torch around here somewhere”. He unwrapped his arm from around her in order to search through the pockets on the inside on his jacket. “Got it!” he exclaimed, pulling out a set of keys with a little torch attached. In doing so he also displaced a thin stick-like object from his pocket.  
“What’s that?” Amy inquired, picking it up and starting to examine it in the dim light before George had had a chance to pick it up. “It’s a magic wand!” The look of horror and surprise on George’s face was hidden by the dark. “Is it a toy from your shop?”   
“Erm… yes. Yes it is” George instantly retorted, visibly relaxing after that close call. He gently took it off her and put it away before turning on his little torch and shining it around. Amy watched in silence for a few minutes as he examined the lift, not wanting to break the chain of thought he appeared to be quite deep in.  
“Well I guess no one’s coming to rescue us then,” he stated “so we’d better start making our own way out.” With that, he stood up and started inspecting the roof tiles. “I reckon we could probably push them up and climb out onto the top of the lift. From there, hopefully they’ll be a ladder for us to climb up the lift shaft to a door so we can get out.” He helped Amy to her feet then tried to push one of the roof tiles to one side. With a bit of difficulty, he managed it and shone the torch up through the gap.   
“Look, like I said, a ladder. Do you want to go first or would you rather I did?” he asked a nervous looking Amy.  
“Erm… you go first…” she murmured warily. George jumped up and started to pull himself through the gap, assisted by Amy and climbed out onto the top of the lift. He lent back down through the hole.  
“Pass me the stuff up.” Amy passed his shopping up into his reaching arms, followed by her stuff. With a bit of difficulty, he then succeeded to pull her up through the gap and replaced the roof tile. They sat together, catching their breath for a moment.  
“Stay here” George instructed Amy. “I’ll climb up and see if I can get those doors open.” He pointed with the torch to some metal doors near the top of the shaft then passed her the torch so she could light the way for him. He clambered up the ladder then peered around, calculating the best way to reach the doors on the other side of the lift shaft. He edged his way onto a beam which ran round the edge of the shaft and slowly crept round it as Amy screwed her eyes closed, too scared to watch. When he got round to the doors, he squeezed his fingers into the gap between them and slowly prised them open, stepping out onto the shop floor.  
“Right,” he called down to Amy “climb up the ladder and I’ll help you across then I’ll go back down to get our stuff”. Amy was reluctant to climb up the ladder but was now beyond desperate to use the loo so plucked up the courage and began to climb, putting the torch in her mouth to leave both her hands free to grip the ladder. She was almost opposite the doors when the torch fell from her mouth. She leant over to try and catch it and in doing so lost her footing and began to fall. She screamed as she came closer and closer to the lift below then, when she was just inches from hitting it, gravity appeared to reverse and she was flying upwards. She reached the top of the lift shaft (having just avoided all the lift cables) and hung upside down, seemingly attached to the surface by her right foot. She’d stopped screaming now, too stunned to even make a sound. She slowly opened her eyes (she couldn’t even remember closing them, but must have done at some point) and looked down to see George stood in the opened doorway, pointing the wand at her and looking a mixture of shocked, nervous, suspensive and a whole spectrum of other emotions encapsulated. Neither of them uttered a word or moved a muscle. Slowly she felt dampness dripping downwards towards her head and realised to her horror that she must have wet herself.  
“What… what… what…” was all she managed to say. 

George managed to come to himself and lowered the wand for a moment.   
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you down” he shouted. He muttered a few words and she began to rotate right way up and hover down, guided by his wand. He reached out his other hand, pulled her through the doorway and sat her down next to him.   
“How… how did you do that?” Amy managed to gasp. George said nothing for a few moments.  
“I’d best tell you the truth. I’m a wizard. I can do magic. Really magic, not just muggle party tricks magic like those toys.” He pointed down in the direction of their shopping, now in darkness since the torch had gone out when it fell.  
“That’s… that’s… that’s a real wand?” Amy stuttered  
“Yes and my shop isn’t just an ordinary muggle joke shop, it’s a magic joke shop, selling tricks and novelty items with spells put on them. All kinds of magic things. That’s why I couldn’t tell you where it was, so you wouldn’t go.”  
“Oh” blinked Amy, trying to take it all in.  
“And that’s why I took back the yellow sweet. It was one of the ones from the shop, a Yellow Yeller to be precise.”  
“Was… was what happened to your ear magic related… was that why you couldn’t tell me?” Amy inquired, regaining her voice slightly.  
“Yes.” Amy waited for him to continue but again he didn’t  
“And… and… Fred?” she asked timidly, not sure whether to bring it up again. This time George said nothing at all, just nodded. They both sat, engulfed in their own thoughts.

"Well, we'd better be getting out of here then" George said abruptly, standing up and holding out his hand to help Amy to her feet.  
“But how?” Amy asked. “If we step any further out of the doorway then we’ll probably set the alarms off and it’ll be chaos!”  
“We don’t have to. Technically I could have got us out of here ages ago but didn’t because it would involve using magic and we’re not allowed to use magic in front of muggles.”  
“Muggles?”  
“Non-magic people; people who aren’t wizards”  
“Like me?”  
“Yeah.”  
Amy thought about this for a while. “Muggle”. Did she like the sound of being referred to as a “muggle”? Suddenly another thought came into her head.  
“You used magic in front of me. Will you get in trouble?”  
“Hopefully not. I don’t know. I’ve never really been one for sticking to the rules anyway.” George smiled as he said this, thinking about old memories of school pranks, but the smile dropped slightly as he remembered his partner in crime. He shook the thoughts away, returning to the present.  
“Accio shopping!” he shouted, pointing his wand down the lift shaft. Both George and Amy’s shopping came flying up, almost bowling Amy over as she tried to catch it. George helped her set it all down on the ground and examined it, trying to determine what else there was still down the shaft.  
“Accio handbag! Accio keys!” This time Amy was slightly more prepared to catch the stuff. “Anything else?” George asked her.  
“Think that’s everything” she gasped, still getting over the shock of the flying bags.  
“Right, where do you live?” Amy robotically told him the address of her student flat, still too shocked and confused to question why he had asked. George picked up his shopping and Amy did the same with hers, not entirely sure what was going on. George grabbed hold of her hand. Suddenly everything seemed to spin. Amy felt like she was being squeezed into nothingness. She screwed her eyes closed and clung onto his hand like her life depended on it. 

To be continued...


	2. Explanations and Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy gets some explanations about what's going on.

Chapter two- explanations and revelations

The spinning had stopped and their feet had touched back onto solid ground. Amy opened her eyes but did not yet loosen her grip on George’s hand. She looked around. They were in the alleyway round the back of her flat. She stood there, mouth gaping, trying to make sense of what had just happened. George wiggled his hand inside hers slightly and she loosened her grip a little, realising how tightly she had been clinging to it. They walked slowly around to the front of the building. They entered in silence and climbed up the flight of stairs, not even glancing at the lift. Amy was technically leading the way, but they walked so slow it would be impossible for an observer to tell. When they reached her door, Amy robotically took her key from her bag and opened it. George followed her through and shut it behind him. The silence continued for a few seconds until George decided it was time he said something to break it.  
“Well… erm… I guess you’ll probably want to go have a shower” he said, slowly letting go of her hand and turning to face her. Amy looked down. She’d forgotten about the accident in the lift shaft. She blushed red.  
“I’ll wait here for you then we’ll talk when you’re done.” Amy just nodded at this then put down the bags decorating her arms and walked off in the direction of the bathroom.

As the warm water gushed down onto her head, Amy thought about the recent events. She’d met a wizard. A real wizard. And he was standing in her living room. She brushed her shampoo-ey hair out of her eyes. Magic was real. She’d seen it. She’d felt it- it had saved her life (probably). She relived the free-fall in her mind, seeing the roof of the lift coming closer and closer. What would have happened if she hit it? How far did she fall? She wrenched her eyes open, only to quickly shut them again as soapy water flowed into them, making them sting.  
“Get a grip!” she thought to herself. She was being pathetic. What must George think of her? She hurried to finish her shower, quickly dried herself and snuck into her room to find something to wear. She started to panic. She wanted to impress him but was worried about how long she’d been. Would he be bored? What if he’d already given up and left? She threw on her pink dress which was hanging on the side of the wardrobe and quickly stuck on a bit of lipstick and mascara before hurrying back into the living room. George was sat there in one of her arm chairs, admiring a painting she’d done a few years ago. He turned and stood up at the sound the bedroom door shutting behind her.  
“Err… hi…” Amy stuttered at him “Sorry it took me a while.”  
“Good things come to those who wait” George replied with that same cheeky grin. He brushed his hair back and took off his hat, revealing a full view of his missing ear for the first time.  
Amy wasn’t sure of what to say. She was a bit entranced by the combination of his smile and the mystery of his ear.  
“Would… would you like a drink?” she asked, entering into hostess mode.  
“I’ll have a glass of wine if you’ve got any.” Amy entered her little kitchen, returning with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. She led the way to the sofa, sat down and proceeded to pour them both a glass of wine out. George picked up his glass and took a swig.  
“Of all muggle drinks, I’ve found myself a liking for red wine. That and tea. Not sure why but can’t get enough of the stuff now”  
“What, do wizards not normally drink tea?” Amy asked, surprised  
“Not generally. Pumpkin juice and butter beer are particular wizard favourites”  
“I’d go mad in a world without tea!” George giggled at this comment. 

They both sat, sipping their wine. Neither was keen to break the silence to broach the question of what would happen next. Eventually curiosity got the better of Amy.  
“So, what’s going to happen to me? To us? What do we do now?” George put down his glass and looked into her pale blue eyes.  
“It’ll be OK. I promise. I’m not quite sure what happens in cases like this but it’ll be OK. I know we’ve only just met but… but there’s something about you… this feels like it could be the start of something. I won’t let them finish it before it’s even started.”  
“Who? Who are “they”? Will there be like wizard police after you, after us?”  
“Hopefully not. I mean, we haven’t heard anything from them yet. This is only a small scale incident, a small break of the Statute of Secrecy.”  
“The what?”  
“Statute of Secrecy. The rules to keep magic hidden from muggles. Hopefully we can just persuade the Ministry of Magic that you won’t tell anyone or do anything to reveal us and they’ll let us get on with… with whatever this turns out to be, with little interference; that they’ll just wait and see what happens.” He stopped for a second, trying to think of how to word his next question. “Because would you like to go out with me sometime… on a date- we could go get a drink or something…? Of course I’d understand if you never wanted to see me again… after everything that’s happened today and everything…”  
“Yes” Amy cut in “Yes, I would like to go out with you.” George beamed. He took her face in his hands and delicately kissed her. She began to slowly run her fingers through his hair but stopped as her thumb passed where his ear should be. He pulled away from her slightly to look at her and see why she’d stopped.  
“Sorry, it’s just that I’ve never kissed someone missing an ear before,” Amy apologised. “It kind of surprised me.” They both looked into each other’s faces and began to laugh.  
“I bet you’ve never known a guy like me before” George chuckled.  
“Come to think of it, I don’t think I have!” They continued to laugh then took a sip of their drinks.

“But seriously,” Amy said, once they had both finished laughing “what will happen if they don’t just accept us? I mean, surely there’s been relationships between wizards and “muggles” before?”  
“Yes, there’s been loads. The thing is, they expect you to not reveal you’re a wizard until you’re married.”  
“Until you’re married?” Amy interjected, astonished. “Surely they don’t expect you to keep a secret like that until you’re married!”  
“Yes. Doesn’t always happen of course.”  
“Well, now I know, what can they do about it?” The look on George’s face showed there was something “they” could do.  
“They could erase your memory”  
“Erase my memory!?”  
“Yes. There are spells called memory charms that can make people forget particular things. They could make you forget this whole day. I could make you forget this whole day!” After looking at the shock on Amy’s face he quickly added “I’m not going to of course”. It took Amy a few seconds to take all this in.  
“Oh…” was all she managed to mutter. She quickly decided to change the topic. “So, do you fancy something to eat? I could order us a pizza. You do eat pizza, don’t you?” George chuckled at this.  
“Not very often, but yes, I have done. I think it was pepperoni I had last time. It was quite nice.”  
“So should I order two pepperonis then?”  
“Yes please.” Amy went into her bag to get her phone out but then realised it was still out of charge.  
“Well, we’re going to have to wait for this to charge up enough for me to use it” she told George as she rooted round in a draw and pulled out a phone charger.  
“That’s ok, I’m in no rush” he replied. 

Just then a thought came into Amy’s head. “You don’t need to ring anybody or anything do you? To tell them where you are. They won’t be expecting you, will they?”  
“No it’s fine. I live on my own in the flat above the shop. I mean, I often go round to one relative or another’s for tea but I’m not meant to be off anywhere today.”  
“Oh ok. So do you have a big family then?” asked Amy nervously, wondering whether she should mention family after what he’d said about Fred. She was relieved when he looked fairly relaxed about this question.  
“Yeah, there is quite a lot of us. There’s my mum and dad, Molly and Arthur, then all my siblings, not to mention all their partners and the increasing brood of kids. Bill’s my oldest brother, followed by Charlie and Percy. Then there’s me and Fred…” he stopped for a moment. Amy was just about to put her arm around him when he swiftly continued “Then there’s Ron and finally, our little sister Ginny. Well, she’s not so little anymore- she got married the other week. It came close to turning into wedding wars with her and Harry and Ron and Hermione, but they sorted it out in the end.” He sniggered to himself, picturing some of the now-concluded arguments between the two couples.  
“So are they all wizards?” asked Amy.  
“Yes, but Harry and Hermione weren’t brought up as wizards. Harry’s parents were killed when he was a baby so he was raised by his muggle aunt and uncle. He’s famous in the wizarding world actually, but it’ll take quite a while to explain the full story so we’ll save it for another day. Hermione was muggle-born; both her parents were muggles but she was a witch. Both of them were very surprised to receive their Hogwarts letters when they turned 11.”  
“What’s Hogwarts?”  
“A school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We all went there.”  
“Oh…” replied Amy, but she had another question she wanted to ask. “You know you said witchcraft… you don’t mean like evil witchcraft do you?”  
“What, the kind of witches you muggles used to like to hunt and burn at stakes? Well actually these “witches” were generally real witches, if they weren’t muggles with mistaken identity, but I mean, we’re not evil and we don’t go around worshiping the devil or anything. We just happen to be born with the ability to use magic. You muggles go about your daily lives without noticing our society within yours. Of course there are dark wizards. There is evil within every society. Not long ago there was a great wizard who was the darkest, most evil wizard ever known. As I said, I’ll explain to you about all this another time. Now…” he stopped and looked at her “where’s my pizza?”  
“Oops!” exclaimed Amy “I forgot to order it!” She got up and rang the local pizza company to order their pizzas then sat back down next to George on the sofa.  
“So, I’ve told you about my family, now tell me about yours”  
“Well…” started Amy “I’ve got two brothers; Tom's three years older and Antony’s three years younger…” She told him all about her family and her childhood. George found it fascinating listening about her different way of life. She was still telling him about herself when the doorbell rang- the pizzas had arrived. Amy got up and started getting her purse out.  
“No, I’ll pay” George told her. She started to argue. He stood firm “I insist- I’ve still got a load of muggle money left over from earlier anyhow.”  
“Muggle money? You mean you guys used different money normally?” George was about to answer her when the doorbell rang again.  
“Yes. Now, I’ll better go down and get the pizza. Back in a minute.” With that, he was out of the door and heading down the corridor. Amy waited in the doorway to her flat and soon enough George came back with the pizzas.  
“You didn’t have to do that” she said to him, feeling slightly awkward.  
“It’s fine. Besides, we’ve drank most of your wine” he replied, nodding in the direction of the bottle which they had almost emptied without even noticing. George put the pizzas down on the coffee table and Amy topped up their glasses with the last of the wine.  
“Might as well finish it off. Do we want plates and cutlery etc.?”  
“Nah” They both sat down. Amy picked up her wineglass.  
“To us.” George picked up his glass and clinked it against hers.  
“To us.” They smiled at each other then set about devouring their pizza. It had been quite an eventful day so they were both starving. Perfect table manners and dinner conversation were off the menu.

"Well, I'm stuffed!” exclaimed George, replacing the now empty pizza box onto the table and lying backwards against the sofa.  
“Me too. I probably should have ordered smaller pizzas…” Amy replied, feeling a bit self-loathing after having eaten so much.  
“Nah. We needed a good meal after our adventure earlier!” George smirked at her and she couldn’t help but smile back too. It had most certainly been an extraordinary day.  
“So…” Amy started uncertainly “erm… well could you demonstrate some magic for me now? Nothing fancy just, I don’t know…” she looked around “Make that tissue box levitate!” George began to reach enthusiastically for his wand but stopped.  
“I’d like too, but I think I’d probably best not for now. We might be in trouble as it is, so I’d best leave showing off for another day.” Amy nodded understandingly at this, starting to worry again what the outcome might be for the pair. George saw the look of worry on her face and immediately started trying to reassure her.  
“As I said, I’m sure it will be fine. Tomorrow I’ll pop down to the Ministry and hopefully I should be able to persuade them that there’s nothing for them to fuss about. I mean, I know people there so they should be able to help me out.” Amy smiled and nodded at this, but could see in his eyes that he was nervous too.  
“Do… do you want me to come with you when you go… go to this Ministry place?”  
“No. Not at first anyway. They might want to meet you later but I’ll go on my own in the morning.”  
“Oh. OK then…” They both sat engrossed in their own thoughts for a minute or two.  
“I was thinking,” George interrupted the silence, “would it be OK if I stayed here tonight? On the sofa of course. It’s just that well, we’ve been drinking so I probably best not apparate, you never know where I might end up! Apparation is a form of wizard transportation, by the way. It’s how we got here. We do it all the time, it’s just that if you get it wrong, it can get a bit… messy.” He laughed at this, but Amy could still see signs of fear underneath, that there were more reasons he wanted to stay with her.  
“Yeah sure, that’s fine” she replied, masking her own anxiety with a confident grin. “I’ll go try and find you some blankets or something.”

She left the room and returned a short while later with a sleeping bag.  
“Sorry, this is all I could find. Are you sure you’ll be alright on there? It’s not very long and you… kind of are.”  
“I’ll be fine” George chuckled back “I’ve slept on worse before.” He helped her shift the empty pizza boxes, wine glasses and bottle through to the kitchenette.  
“So… Would you like to watch a film or something?” Amy asked him “It’s not that late yet.” She knew she probably should get an early night because she had 9am lectures the next day, but wasn’t ready to let the evening finish yet.  
“I’ve never really seen much in the way of muggle TV and film before. Ron was saying that I should watch some film or something that Hermione had him watching but I’ve not got round to it yet.” George replied slightly sheepishly.  
“You’ve never watched TV!” Amy exclaimed, shocked. “Come on, what should we watch?” she muttered to herself, searching through the part of her DVD shelf housing her box sets. “How about ‘Sherlock’?” she asked, pulling out a case and turning to face George. “It’s about a detective guy who solves crimes in London.”  
“Erm… yeah OK” mumbled George, still not entirely sure what it was, but deciding to go along with it. Amy put the disc in the side of the telly and they sat down on the sofa and watched the first episode. George didn’t entirely understand the full plot but definitely recognised some of the locations where it had been filmed. He’d gathered that Amy was very into this particular programme so was very enthusiastic when she asked him if he had liked it.  
“We could watch the rest another day if you want, I’ve got it all on box set” she told him. George nodded non-committedly. “But I think we probably both better get some sleep now”. She showed him the way to her bathroom then, when he’d finished, they said goodnight. George lay the sleeping bag out along the sofa, took off and neatly folded his clothes, then turned out the light and climbed in the bag, in just his boxers. He grabbed a couple of cushions to use as pillows and lay there, smiling to himself. So what, that the sofa was too short for him and his feet hung off the end? So what, he had used magic in front of a muggle and now might be in trouble with the Ministry? He’d met a girl, an amazing, individual, funny, beautiful girl and, for the first time in a long while, he was excited about what the future might hold.

To be continued...


	3. Awaiting News of the Meeting with the Ministry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy and George go on a date.

Chapter Three- awaiting news of the meeting with the Ministry

George was awoken by a strange beeping noise coming from the corner of the room. He tried to leap to his feet, forgetting he was in a sleeping bag and hence falling in a heap on the floor. He looked up, remembering where he was and realising that the noise appeared to be coming from Amy’s phone which she had left on the side, charging. She ran into the room, grabbed it and started pressing buttons. It soon shut up.  
“I’m so sorry, did it wake you? I forgot I had my alarm clock set on it”   
“Its fine” replied George, who by this point had managed to regain some of his dignity and sit himself up. He smiled at her and admired her pink Minnie Mouse pyjamas (not that he knew who Minnie Mouse was). Amy blushed, realising she was stood there in her PJs with just-got-out-of-bed hair.   
“Erm… would you like some breakfast?” she asked him. She listed off the few suitable possibilities from her sparsely stocked cupboard, worried what wizards usually ate for breakfast. George decided to accept her offer of toast (being unsure of what some of the other options actually were). Amy went off to the kitchenette to make it whilst he put his clothes from the previous day back on. He realised that he was actually meant to be working in the shop that morning and was possibly meant to be opening up. His staff would be able to manage without him though. He’d pop in later to check everything was alright when he went home to get change before heading over to the Ministry. He shuddered. He’d forgotten that he needed to do that; go see the Ministry. No matter how many times he told himself that it was going to be fine, a little voice in his head kept saying that it wouldn’t be. 

Amy disturbed his chain of thought by walking in with a tray containing a big pile of toast, a teapot and mugs etc. He ignored his previous thoughts and smiled at her as she settled down on the sofa next to him and they both tucked in. Amy subtlety glanced at her watch a couple of times, but continued to eat toast and casually chat to George.  
“Do you need to be somewhere?” George asked her   
“Erm… Yeah well I’m meant to have a lecture at nine…” she replied sheepishly.  
“Don’t let me make you late!” he exclaimed, “You go get ready, I’ll clear this stuff away”. Amy reluctantly agreed and went off to her room to get dressed. When she returned, George had tidied away the breakfast things and was waiting for her in the living room. They agreed to meet back up that afternoon when she had finished with lectures for the day, by which time he assured her everything would be sorted with the Ministry. They walked down the stairs to the entrance to her building, where they said a slightly awkward goodbye. George kissed her on the cheek before walking off in the opposite direction, round to the back of the building to apparate back home.

George worried to himself as he walked through the cold London streets. He could have easily used the floo network to get to the Ministry but had decided to use the visitor entrance with its phone box-shaped lift instead. This was mainly to put off getting there. He guessed they might be expecting him to turn up. He hadn’t had any owls delivering messages to his flat but imagined there would be if he didn’t go see anybody soon. Would his family know? Half his family seemed to work for the Ministry so it would be quite unlikely that they hadn’t all heard. What would they think? They would probably be quite pleased he had found a girl. He couldn’t help but notice the look they all gave him still. Guilt, at seeing his loneliness, but also pain. Pain because they would always see him as half a pair, half of Fred and George, and knew that they would never see the other half again. The fact Amy was a muggle wouldn’t bother them. In fact, they would probably be pleased. His dad loved muggle technology and so would be thrilled to have someone to ask about it. Hermione and Harry would be relieved if it meant he stopped asking them as it had been over a decade now since they stopped living as muggles and really didn’t know much about muggle life that Arthur hadn’t already asked them about. What might concern his family though, was that he broke the rules, he revealed himself as a wizard. They had had enough chaos and upset to last them a lifetime, they didn’t need anymore. He was hoping that he would be able to explain this to the rest of the Ministry…

Amy couldn't concentrate in her lecture. How could she think about the signs of Rubella (or whatever random disease it was that her lecturer was waffling on about) when George was probably in a meeting right now which could greatly influence their lives. If it went badly, there may have been no point had she listened to the lecture anyway, because they might come and erase her memory. It was a scary thought. She had learn about brain injuries, degenerative diseases etc. but still the idea of someone coming along and deleting things from her memory was terrifying. How did she know that they hadn’t already done so (apart from the fact she could still remember George and the incident in the lift- surely if they were going to delete her memory, they’d have deleted those parts)? She was unusually quiet during lunch. Her friends could see that something was up but felt they’d better not ask. Part of her couldn’t wait until 4pm when she would be able to see George again. However, seeing him would mean hearing the (potentially bad) verdict. She considered skipping her last lecture in order to go home early but reasoned with herself that there was no point- George wasn’t going to get there until 4pm anyway and she had no way of contacting him. Why didn’t he own a phone? She was so used to being able to just ring or text people, that or message them on Facebook (she’d never actually asked him if he was on Facebook but highly doubted that he would be). What would happen if he didn’t show up? She might never be able to find him again. All she knew about where he lived was that it was in London somewhere. London was a very big place to try and locate someone. Particularly if they were somewhere that was probably hidden by magic.

When her lectures had finally finished for the day, Amy ran home, barely even waiting to say bye to her friends before she dashed out of the lecture theatre. It was very quiet as she stood panting outside the entrance to her building. She had forgotten to take her coat with her in her rush leaving that morning so was quite chilly as she paced nervously back and forth. She considered waiting inside the entrance but wanted to be sure she didn’t miss him. She glanced at her watch; 4:03pm- seven minutes since she’d arrived. She promised herself she wouldn’t start panicking until at least 4:10pm, he was probably just running late. She continued to pace, rubbing her arms with her hands, trying to keep warm. 4:05, 4:08, 4:11pm. Amy got her phone out, automatically checking to see if he’d messaged, although she knew obviously he wouldn’t have done. The sound of approaching footsteps got her hopes up, only for one of the other girls who lived in her building to walk round the corner. Amy nodded in greeting at her, trying to mask her disappointment. Where was he? The meeting with the Ministry couldn’t have gone on this long surely? He said that he was going to go there straight after popping home when he left hers. That was over seven hours ago. What if the Ministry had been angry? If they’d banned him from seeing her? If they’d thrown him in wizard-jail (if there was such a thing)? If they’d wiped his memory? Were people on the way to get her?

Just as she was entering the deepest levels of despair, Amy heard a loud cracking noise coming from round the back of the building. She ran round to see George stood there, looking sheepish, wearing a rather nice three-piece suit and long black coat. Amy had a liking for guys in nice suits (and also was quite fond of guys wearing some quite attractive knitwear too). However, she was so pleased to see him at this current time, she didn’t even notice what he was wearing. She ran over to him, threw her arms round him and hugged him, almost crying. George stepped backwards slightly, trying to keep his balance as he hadn’t been expecting quite as extreme a greeting.   
“Sorry I’m late,” he gasped (as the hug had rather knocked the wind out of him), “I lost track of time!”  
“Its ok” replied Amy, “You’re here now”. She stopped for a second. “How… how did the meeting with the Ministry go?” she asked tentatively.  
“It went well” George beamed. Amy sighed with relief. “Yeah, the Ministry have agreed to stay out of it for now as long as we make sure no one else finds out. So you need to make sure that you don’t tell anyone anything that might give away the fact I’m a wizard and I’ll better be careful when I use magic but apart from that we should be fine. The Ministry don’t want trouble so if we abide by their rules, they’ll leave us alone. It’s all going to be alright.” He lent down and kissed her softly on the lips.

They stood absorbed in the moment, happy in each other’s arms. George felt Amy shiver slightly against him and realised that it would probably be a good idea to go inside now, particularly as it was starting to get dark.   
“So…” he started, “What do we want to do now? I was thinking we could go back to my flat if you want and I could cook for you. How does spaghetti bolognaise sound?” Amy was slightly surprised, firstly that he had suddenly started talking (causing her mind to have to quickly leave its thoughts) and secondly that he had suggested bolognaise. She wasn’t sure why, but she couldn’t quite picture wizards eating spag bol. Not that she could particularly picture wizards doing anything. The concept of wizards was still very new and strange to her and she was finding it hard to comprehend. That and the fact she had only actually met one wizard (who happened to have his arm around her waist at this current moment in time).  
“Erm… yeah ok then…” she stuttered in reply.  
“Great! However there is one problem…” George looked awkwardly at Amy. “Wizard buildings tend to have charms on to prevent people just apparating into them. So whereas I can generally apparate straight into muggle buildings, like the department store yesterday, I have apparate outside most wizard buildings…”  
“You apparated straight into the department store yesterday?” Amy cut in, surprised. George’s face changed from awkward towards embarrassed.  
“Well not earlier on, when I went to do my shopping. But I well, popped back, whilst you were in the shower. I realised that I probably better had put the lift back to normal and erase the CCTV so the muggles didn’t get suspicious. I’m sorry, I probably should have mentioned it, but felt bad because I said I wouldn’t go anywhere.”  
“Its ok” smiled Amy, slightly relieved because she had been worrying that the shop might have been able to tell they’d been there, but had been unwilling to mention it. “So do we need to apparate outside your flat then?”  
“Yes. I can normally just apparate straight inside, but I’ll have to adjust the charm so I can apparate in with you. So we’ll have to go through Diagon Alley. The issue is, Diagon Alley is one of the busiest streets for wizards shopping and I bet word will have got round quite a few people about me and you and what happened yesterday. I imagine you might not fancy a load of wizard attention quite yet…” He stopped and started pulling something out of his coat pocket. “That is why I have brought this!” He unveiled a large piece of material, shiny and quite clear. “I borrowed this off Harry earlier. I thought you might like to use it. It’s his invisibility cloak. If you put it on no one can see you.” With this, he demonstrated by throwing it over himself. He seemingly disappeared (apart from his feet which stuck out of the bottom).  
“Wow!” gasped Amy, impressed. “But I can still see your feet”. George pulled the cloak back off and his body reappeared.  
“Yes, well I didn’t have it on quite right. Besides, I don’t think it was designed for people quite my height. But what do you think? You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. Or we could go somewhere else. I just thought it might be a good idea.” Amy carefully took the cloak off him and wrapped it round herself.  
“I’ll give it a try” she said, sticking a hand out from behind the cloak in order to hold on to George’s. He gave it a squeeze as the world began to spin and they apparated across the country. 

To be continued...


	4. Entering the world of wizards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy and George visit his flat in Diagon Alley

Chapter Four- entering the world of wizards

They arrived in what looked like just an ordinary street, empty except for them. Next to them was a run-down looking pub. Amy was slightly disappointed.  
“This doesn’t look very… magical” she whispered, not wanting to draw attention to her seemingly body-less voice, despite the fact there didn’t appear to be anyone around.  
“That’s because it isn’t. We need to go through there to get to Diagon Alley” replied George, nodding his head in the direction of the pub.  
“There?” asked Amy. If she hadn’t been wearing the invisibility cloak, George would have seen the look of great scepticism on her face.  
“Yep. Come on.” George smiled at her and squeezed her hand before letting go and making sure it was covered by the cloak. He led the way through the door to the bar.  
Inside it looked slightly less like a dive than Amy was expecting, but still wasn’t anything in particular to look at. It was reasonably quiet, just a couple of men in cloaks sat at the bar (Amy guessed this was probably a form of wizard dress but wouldn’t have looked twice even if she wasn’t expecting the presence of wizards, as the cloaks could just have easily been winter coats). They walked past them, George in front and Amy following behind, trying to walk as quietly as possible. As they passed round to the other side of the bar, Amy noticed a young women sat at one of the tables. She had long blonde hair and a rather exuberant dress sense (Amy wasn’t sure whether to account this to her probably being a witch, or whether she simply was just a bit odd) and was sat quietly sipping a drink and reading some kind of magazine. As she walked past the girl, Amy tripped over the corner of the table, slightly knocking into the girl.   
“Sorry!” she called out in an apologetic whisper, before she had chance to stop herself. The girl looked up, slightly surprised, but looked across in the direction George and Amy were stood, smiled and returned to her magazine. 

They continued on out the back of the pub. Amy thought that George might have been annoyed but he looked happy enough and didn’t mention the incident at all. He led her to what appeared to be a dead end, blocked by a brick wall. Just as Amy was about to ask whether they’d gone the wrong way, he took out his wand and began tapping different stones in the wall. Suddenly the stones in the wall started to fly out, forming an expanding hole which turned into the entrance way to a street. George stepped through the gap and Amy timidly followed. The street was cobbled and lined on either side with buildings, two or three stories high and looking slightly crooked. They began to walk down it. Amy gazed in through shop windows as they passed, goggling at all the mysterious looking items in the windows. Some shops had what looked like cauldrons, some had owls. Even the bookshop looked magical. Only a few people passed them as they continued down the street and none seemed to look in Amy’s direction at all. The odd person muttered a greeting to George as they passed and a couple appeared to whisper to each other but that was all. They reached a quite bright, flashy, fun looking shop. Inside you could see all sorts of mysterious looking items. George stopped and looked in the direction where he guessed Amy was (getting it almost spot on). He gestured his head proudly at the sign above the door: “Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes”.  
“I’ll show you round later when everyone’s left if you want” he whispered to Amy, walking round to an alleyway down the side of the shop. He took out his keys from his pocket and used them to open a door round the back. He opened the door and gestured for Amy to go through, following when he was sure he wouldn’t walk straight into her. When inside he opened (but didn’t have to unlock) another door to the right of a passageway. Behind it was a set of stairs. Again he gestured for Amy to go ahead and shut it behind him.  
“You can take the cloak off now if you want” he told her, “My flat’s just up here”. Amy took off the cloak with a swish and her body reappeared back into view. She passed the cloak back to George and they continued on up the stairs, reaching a small landing from where George opened yet another door. He showed Amy in.  
“Well, this is my flat” he said, placing the cloak down on the side and turning the lights on with a flick of his wand, “I’ll go get us a drink, make yourself at home”. Amy looked around the room. It was reasonably old fashioned looking, with bits and pieces scattered all over the place. This didn’t make it look messy however, but lived in, homely. She could see some of George’s personality in the room. There was something that didn’t quite feel right about it though. A sense of static-ness, of loss. George had lived there alone for almost five years now but it still reminded him of Fred. A lot of Fred’s things had gone now but some items remained; a second broomstick, lying safely in a box in the corner, a pair of matching “F” and “G” mugs (the “F” mug sitting on the sideboard, the “G” mug, now coffee-stained and slightly chipped, balanced upon a pile of paper on the desk), his wand, encased in a glass frame on the wall.

Amy didn’t notice most of Fred’s stuff. She glanced the wand on the wall, not fully appreciating the significance of it, then moved on to looking at some of the photographs hanging near it. One photo had a group of people, all with matching ginger hair to George, who she guessed must be his family. She spotted George on it. Well rather, spotted George and Fred on it. They looked so alike. She had been expecting them to look similar, with them being twins and everything, but they looked exactly identical. She couldn’t tell them apart. It didn’t help that George looked a bit younger, more childlike (although she guessed he was probably in his late teens) and still had his left ear. She was looking closer, trying to see if she could work out which one was George when he moved. The person in the picture moved. Amy screamed and jumped backwards.

George ran in, holding a bottle of wine in one hand and a pair of glasses in the other.  
“What is it?” he asked concerned, preparing to drop the glasses if needs be so he would be able to draw his wand from his pocket.  
“The picture moved! One of the people in the picture moved!”  
“Ah…” replied George, relaxing, “Yeah, people in wizard photographs can move. I’d forgotten that doesn’t happen in muggle photos. Sorry, I probably should have warned you.”  
“Oh” muttered Amy, catching her breath and staring at the picture suspiciously, looking for movement. “Is it in all wizard pictures, or only certain ones that have been made to move?”  
“All of them. It seemed so weird when I first saw muggle pictures. They just seem so… still!” He watched Amy examine the photo, taking joy in the smile on her face as the photo-him pulled a silly face. “I’ll just put this wine down on the table, then I’ll point everyone out on it for you. Do you want a glass?”  
“Yes please, but you’d better make it a small glass. I’ve got an essay I need to work on when I get back.”  
“I’m not keeping you from your studying am I?” asked George, concerned  
“No, it’s fine. I just can’t stay out too late.”  
“Well I was thinking I’d make tea for seven ish. I could have you back by nine. Will that be ok?”  
“Yeah, sounds good”. She took the glass of wine he passed her. 

Together they looked at the pictures on his wall; the one of his family, another with him and Fred at the wedding of their oldest brother, Bill (this was clearly taken not long after George had lost his ear, as his head was still wrapped in a bandage, which the photo-him kept fiddling with), one of the Quidditch team when he was at school. George started explaining the basics of Quidditch to Amy.  
“You can fly?! Wizards actually fly on broomsticks?!” exclaimed Amy, both shocked and fascinated.  
“Yeah. Did you not notice my broomstick over there? I’ll show you sometime if you want. I guess it’s a bit late to go today now, it’s getting quite dark.”  
“I’ve always wanted to be able to fly, ever since I’ve been a little girl. To feel the wind blow through my hair, to be able to zoom through the air. Would I be able to fly with you, or do you have to be a wizard to fly on a broomstick?” Amy asked, hopeful.  
“I’m not actually sure if you would able to fly the broomstick on your own or not. I guess not, but I’d never really thought about it, whether you need to be magical to fly a broomstick. Because you don’t need a wand with you to make it work. I guess we could see. But you’d be able to fly on the broomstick with me anyhow, that would work.” George paused, in thought. “I tell you what, how about we go have a go on Saturday, if you’re free? We could up to this place I know in Scotland. It’s a beautiful area, mountains and forests around with a nice clearing for practicing flying. It’s in the middle of nowhere so there shouldn’t be any muggles around to see us. We could take a picnic and make a day of it. What do you think?”  
“That sounds fantastic!” exclaimed Amy, excited (although slightly impatient that she would have to wait all week).  
"Right, so we'll do that then. We can plan everything later this week. I might have to have a practice flying beforehand thinking about it though, it's been ages since I've been out on my broom."

George and Amy continued to look at the photos, with George pointing out people and telling her anecdotes. He told her all about his family, about wizards and about his school days. Amy found the difference between their lives fascinating, amazed that some of the things that seemed inherent in her life didn't appear in his.   
"What, you guys don't have electricity!" she exclaimed  
"No, we power things with magic" George replied, feeling slightly smug at her amazement.  
"But how does that even work? Doesn't that break the laws of physics? Where does the energy for magic come from?"  
"I'm not sure. We never had to learn science at school so I don't know the full concepts. I imagine magic will probably rather more upset the muggle view of the world, that's part of the reason we keep it hidden. As for where the energy comes from, I think that's the act of saying the spells and from the wand. I've never really thought about it, all my life I've known magic so I've just accepted it. But speaking of magic, how about a demonstration?"  
"Ooh yeah! What spells can you do?"  
"Quite a lot. Basically our whole education is magic remember, we don't do English, maths and science etc like you do."  
"You didn't have to study English, maths and science?!"  
"We didn't have to study any 'muggle subjects'. Obviously we had to do basic maths and English, but none of that analysing books faff and no algebra etc, whatever that even is..."  
"Wow..." Amy exclaimed, trying to come to terms with just how different their lives had been. George smiled, pleased with how much he seemed to be able to surprise her with facts about his life and how interested she seemed to be. He decided it would be a good time (and rather amusing) to surprise her some more; he quickly drew his wand out of his jacket pocket and shot some fireworks out of it, lighting up the room with a bang. Amy had still been in mid-thought and totally not expecting this so jumped backwards, dropping her wine glass in the progress. It fell to the floor, smashing into pieces, red wine seeping into the fibres of the pale carpet.  
"What... What..." Amy stuttered, slowly getting over the shock. She noticed the mess on the floor and started to apologise.  
"No, it was my fault" cut in George, "That probably wasn't a good idea. But don't worry about the mess, I can fix that." With a wave of his wand, the shards of glass reassembled themselves into a wine glass and the wine stain disappeared from the carpet.  
"Wow!" Amy exclaimed as George poured her another glass of wine out, "That must be a useful skill!"  
"It's not the best spell I can do though" smiled George, before amazing Amy with a whole range of different spells.

To be continued...


	5. Meeting more wizards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy and George go round for dinner with Harry and Ginny

Chapter five- meeting more wizards

Amy lay in bed that night, thinking about her evening. She had learnt so much about George's life and had been very impressed by his magical powers (but also by his cooking, the spaghetti bolognaise had been delicious). She pictured all the curious items she'd seen in his shop (he'd shown her round it on the way back out through Diagon alley to apparate her home). Everything about his life fascinated her but deep inside her, there was fear. Not of him- she felt totally at ease around him- but that they were too different, that their lives couldn't fit together, that her muggle life would bore him. She had only known him two days but was already struggling to imagine her future without him in it. This of course, was causing a great reshuffle in her ideas about the future, having to incorporate what she knew about magic and George's life into her previous daydreams. She couldn't wait to see him again, but was going to have to, as he was busy the next evening (and she had to get on with some of her work anyhow) so had agreed to meet again the day after. She knew she was being silly (and frankly, creepily clingy) to find this short space of time so unbearable to think about, but still couldn't help it. Eventually she fell asleep, thinking of him.

Amy survived the next two days perfectly well (and rather productively) without seeing George, but was still thrilled when 6pm came round and he appeared by magic (no "as if" about it) outside her block of flats. After a brief catch up (him telling her about his family meal the previous night- they had both decided it was a bit early and intimidating for her to meet his family just yet- and a busy couple of days at work in the shop, her mentioning her lectures and an interesting case she saw during her afternoon placement in the hospital), they apparated to a empty London side street. They had decided today they would visit a nice little Italian restaurant George had been to a few times. He sometimes liked to go when he didn't fancy cooking or another meal for one and wanted to get away from wizard life for a bit. It was a reasonably quiet place, with tasteful, subtle background music, good food and generally polite waiters, who didn't leave you waiting ages, but weren't too interrupting, like they can be at some places. It only took a minute to walk from the side street to the restaurant and soon they were sat at George's favourite table, next to the window, where he sometimes used to stare out and watch the people passing by, wondering about their muggle lives and how different they were from his own. Today however, he was focussed solely on his date. 

After they had ordered their food, the conversation turned back to their respective days, providing each other with a more detailed description than the basic outline given on meeting earlier.   
"That reminds me," started George, whilst mentioning his meal at his parents' with the family, "Our Ginny asked me if you and I wanted to go round to her and Harry's for a meal tomorrow? I know we said it was a bit early for you meeting my family just yet, but it would just be them two. As I mentioned, Harry was muggle-raised himself so it's not like they'll start asking you loads of random questions anyhow. What do you think? If you don't fancy it, it's fine, I'll tell Ginny maybe another time, but I thought you might like to meet some other wizards and get a different view on things?"  
"Erm... Yeah." replied Amy nervously, "That sounds nice. Do you think they'll like me though?"  
"Course they will!" exclaimed George, "I know I'm biased because they're family, but trust me, they're really nice. I think you guys will get on well. Harry's a kind-of celebrity in the wizarding world you know. Or at least he was, he's trying to have a bit of a quieter life now. It'll make a change for him for someone to not automatically know his whole life story. But I guess our Ginny's reasonably famous in wizarding circles now- she's a professional quidditch player. But I'll let them fill you in on things tomorrow, it looks like our food is coming..."

Amy couldn't decide what to wear. She had managed to choose outfits with little difficulty for her dates so far with George, but this was different, she was meeting his family. She didn't want to look over dressed, but wanted it to look like she'd made an effort. What did wizards even wear? The ones she'd seen on her trip through Diagon alley had all been wearing coats so hadn't given her any ideas. She tried on her flowery dress; no, too low-cut. Her long blue dress; too frumpy. Her patterned skirt; just too weird. She was going to have to decide on something soon, it was fast approaching 6:30pm, the time she'd agreed to meet George. 

In the end she decided to just wear her spotty black jumper and black jeans, accessorised with some nice jewellery to make herself look a bit more evening-y. George was waiting for her as she dashed out to meet him, but he insisted that he hadn't been waiting for long. He assured her that she looked lovely when she asked nervously whether he thought her outfit was ok. He himself was wearing a green jumper with a shirt underneath, teamed with a pair of jeans. Although Amy quite liked the jumper-shirt combo, she wasn't too sure about the colour of the jumper, feeling it clashed slightly with his hair, which was looking fierier than ever and combed into a more neat, traditional style than usual (or at least, attempting to look neat, but it was still sticking out a bit, particularly over his missing ear, and got more unruly as the night went on). Of course Amy didn't tell him this, as they hadn't yet reached the point in the relationship where they started picking faults. Instead she just smiled, gave him a kiss, took his left hand (as the right was holding a bottle of wine) and they disappeared off into the night.

The street they reappeared on was quite quiet and foreboding. George lead Amy to what appeared to just be the middle of two houses but suddenly, to Amy's surprise, another house appeared between them.   
"Welcome to Grimmauld Place" George smiled, enjoying the look of astonishment on Amy's face. "Yeah, it's kind of hidden. I think Harry's thinking of doing something about that, but I guess at least it keeps away nosy neighbours!" He knocked on the door and soon it was opened by a young woman with the same striking ginger hair as him. Amy could clearly see the family resemblance.  
"George, glad you could make it!" exclaimed his sister, taking the bottle of wine he passed her. "And you must be Amy, I'm Ginny, come in!" Amy followed George in, trying to hide her nerves. She looked around the hallway, admiring the paintings she could see as Ginny lead them along. It was reasonably dark, but not nearly as dingy as it used to be. In fact, the house had changed a lot since the summer George had spent living there with his family and much of the rest of the Order of the Phoenix. Harry had finally succeeded in removing the painting of old Mrs Black from the wall, relegating it to the attic. They has redecorated the whole building and it now looked like the perfect family home, kept clean by Kreacher, who despite being quite old for a house elf, still managed very well and seemed far less old and bitter than he did when he first met Harry, who was now his master (of course, Harry paid Kreacher wages, mainly to keep Hermione happy as Kreacher himself didn't care). Apart from Kreacher, another thing that had remained constant about the house was the presence of the Black family tree, although now restored and updated. Harry had replaced those names once deleted from it, such as that of his beloved god-father Sirius, and updated it to include newer members, such as little Teddy Lupin (something which now brought great joy to Teddy, as he had just learnt to read his own name and so loved to look at it written on the wall each time he visited). 

They went through into a lounge where they were greeted by Harry, Ginny's husband. Amy had only heard a brief description of Harry's fame in the wizarding world, so wasn't as nervous to meet him as she might have been, but hadn't been sure what to expect of a "chosen one" (a phrase George had dropped into conversation but not yet explained). Harry was a bit shorter than she'd pictured. She'd seen him on some of George's photos, but his hair had been covering his scar, whereas now it was brushed backwards, revealing its lightning bolt shape clearly. Being used to seeing scars and the like whilst on placement in the hospital, Amy didn't stare, but thought to herself that she'd never seen a scar quite like that before. But that was the only part of his appearance that she felt looked particularly magical, when, in some ways, she had been expecting him to look more so (although, to be fair, she didn't think George looked particularly magical; a little mysterious perhaps, with his missing ear, chaotic ginger hair and cheeky grin, but not magical per se).

Harry introduced himself and offered the pair a drink, before popping back to the kitchen to check how the food was coming on.   
"So... How you finding the magic world so far?" Ginny asked Amy, trying to start up a conversation. "It must seem weird".  
"Yeah, it's hard to believe it all exists, without any of us having any idea about it! It's taking a bit of getting used to. And yet, I don't know, but, it seems to make sense. I mean, part of my mind seems to just except it. The whole idea of magic seems so strange to me, and yet, it doesn't blow my brain, destroy my world view. It changes it certainly, but it seems to fit it too." Amy paused, a bit embarrassed. "I'm not making much sense am I? I'm sorry, I have a habit of waffling on when I get talking"  
"No, it's fine," Ginny assured her, "and I think what you were saying does make sense".

Harry came back from the kitchen.  
"So George tells us you're a medical student Amy, what's that like?" Amy told them a bit about her course and her placement at the hospital, then they told her a bit about magical healers and hospitals. Amy was fascinated by tales of what they could do, and how some of their treatments seemed to vastly exceed the capabilities of muggle medicine.   
"Although they can't fix everything," George added, "my ear for example. I imagine your doctors might actually have more success."  
"Why can't they regrow your ear, if they can regrow bones and things?" George looked slightly awkward at this question, and wondered whether now was the right time to tell her the whole story of the night he lost his ear, and of the wizarding war itself.  
"Because it was removed by dark magic" was all he said, deciding to leave the story for another time. The conversation moved on to another topic and Harry went back to the kitchen to start serving up the food, with Ginny following a bit to help him carry it through.

Over dinner, the conversation turned to more general chit-chat; George mentioned a few new items he'd created for the shop, Harry updated them with news from the auror office (after briefly explaining to Amy what an auror was) and Ginny told them about her next quidditch game she had coming up at the weekend. George had told Amy a little about quidditch before, but together the three wizards tried to explain the rules a bit better. Amy didn't entirely understand it all, but George promised he'd take her along to watch one of the games soon, because it would be easier for her to get if she'd actually seen it.  
"So, do you play much sport Amy?" Ginny asked.  
"Not much now. When I was still on the pre-clinical part of my degree and based in the city centre, I played a bit of college sport, but I don't anymore. I still like to cycle a bit through, find a nice quiet path to explore, follow a river, go past a field of cows. I guess it reminds me of home." She pondered this for a minute, and reminisced about the countryside she grew up in.  
Ginny brought out dessert, a big homemade apple pie with icecream, and the conversation was forgotten about as they all tucked in.

After they had all finished and the dishes had been cleared away, Amy asked to go to the bathroom and Harry gave her directions. However, with it being quite a bit old house, Amy got a bit lost and entered the wrong room at first. Normally this wouldn't be a problem. The issue was, the room she happened to enter happened to be the room Kreacher was sat in. Harry had subtly asked him to stay upstairs, because he guessed that Amy might be quite surprised and possibly scared, if she saw him. He guessed right. George, Harry and Ginny had just sat down on the sofas when they heard a loud scream. They jumped up and ran upstairs.  
"What is it?!" exclaimed George, "Are you ok? What happened?"  
"There was this thing. I don't know what it was. This thing, this... monster. It disappeared into thin air!"  
"Ah..." replied George, realising what she'd seen and relaxing somewhat. "Yeah, that was probably Kreacher. He's a house elf." Amy just looked at him, still in shock and confused. Harry looked at Ginny and nodded upwards. She understood what he meant; he was off up to the attic to go find Kreacher, guessing Amy could well have scared him as well. That, or he'd be up there moaning to himself about muggles. Actually, that was probably more likely.  
George put his arm around Amy and started explaining to her about house elves.  
"I'm sorry, we should have probably warned you about Kreacher," apologised Ginny, "we just thought it would be best if he stayed out of the way tonight. Harry had told him that he could have gone out tonight if he wanted, have the night off. But I guess he's quite old now and doesn't really fancy going out much."  
"It's ok," replied Amy, getting over the shock, "I'm sorry for screaming and everything. He just surprised me, that's all."  
Harry came and stood in the doorway. "Amy, meet Kreacher." He slowly stood aside to reveal Kreacher stood behind him. He wasn't too happy about the whole situation, but Harry had told him he must be on his best behaviour, so tried not to scowl too much.   
"Er... hi..." mumbled Amy. Kreacher vaguely muttered a reply then sloped back up to the attic, and they didn't see him for the rest of the evening. 

"So," said George, as he dropped Amy back off outside her flat, "how did you think that went? Aside from the whole Kreacher situation I mean. I think Harry and Ginny really liked you."  
"I don't know, hopefully, yeah. But, yeah, I really enjoyed this evening" Amy replied nervously.  
"We should do it again sometime. Maybe have them round to my flat. But anyway, we need to plan Saturday. I said I'd take you out on the broom, didn't I? How about I pick you up from here at ten in the morning? I'll make a picnic."   
"Sounds good. But..." Amy paused. "Are we not meeting up tomorrow then?"  
"We can if you want, but I thought I might be taking up too much of your time. I thought you might have studying you need to do, or plans with friends, with it being Friday." This was true, at least the studying part, and so they agreed to meet next on Saturday and said goodnight (after a quick kiss).

To be continued...


	6. Taking Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George takes Amy out on his broom, but not everything goes to plan.

Chapter six- Taking flight

Amy stood excitedly outside her flat. She wasn't sure what to expect of the day; George hadn't given her much detail. It took her quite a while to decide what to wear- in the end she had decided on her old jeans (with leggings underneath for extra warmth/protection), Superman t-shirt (apt for flying) and fake-leather jacket (thinking it might help protect her slightly if she fell off). She'd also brought her gloves and bike helmet, not sure if they would be any use. It wasn't long before George turned up, wearing another rather traditional but fetching woolly jumper, holding a broom in one hand and a large carrier bag in the other. He looked around, slightly suspiciously.  
"Hi," he greeted her, kissing her on the cheek, "Shall we go?" He slid the bag up onto his wrist, leaving his hand free to hold hers and apparate them away.

They appeared in a large clearing, surrounded by woods, with snow-topped peaks peeping out behind.   
"Sorry about the speedy greeting," he apologised, "but I thought it might look suspicious of anyone saw me with the broomstick. Also, we probably should think about finding a better place to meet, in case anyone sees us apparate. But we can talk about that later. Shall we get down to what we came here to do: flying?"  
They decided that George should start by demonstrating. Amy watched in awe as he flew through the air. He added a few tricks and spins in to impress her further, before dismounting rather elegantly at her side.   
"Wow!"  
George smiled. "Are you ready for a go? Don't worry, I'll go slow and stay close to the ground."  
"Is it uncomfortable?" she asked, feeling a little nervous and uncertain now it came down to it.  
"Not really. I guess it must be to do with the magic of the brooms as I can see how you might think it would be." He pulled the broom (which was hovering in mid-air) down slightly, to a height that it would be easier for her to get on. "Do you want to sit on the front or back?"  
"Erm... which do you think would be best?"  
"Maybe the back. You can hold onto my waist then, which may be a bit easier than holding onto the broom at first." He helped her up onto the broom then climbed on in front. She wrapped her arms around him, leaning over to the right in order to see round him, the peak of her bike helmet (which she had decided to put on) resting on his arm. George leaned forward slightly, pulling the broom towards him and slowly it began to move forwards and rise. They flew along, hovering about a metre above the ground.  
"You ok?" asked George, "ready to go a bit faster?" Amy muttered a reply, which George took for a yes. Amy clung on tighter to him as they accelerated. They flew through the air, now a couple of metres up, feeling the wind gush past them. George smiled to himself. He'd forgotten how much he loved to fly (despite having been out briefly the previous day). The arms wrapped round him, hugging him tight, felt so natural, despite the change in his balance they necessitated. The difference between now and the last time he flew on a broom with another person was startling. The wind buffeted his hair against his head, brushing where the missing ear should be, as if trying to highlight the point, remind him of that night. 

They flew round for a while, slowly getting higher and faster. Amy was starting to enjoy herself. She had been nervous at first, but felt safe behind George. Carefully she unwrapped one arm from his waist (clinging on tighter with the other) and held it out, feeling the wind brush past it. She had always wanted to be able to fly. If she could have any superpower that would be it, no thinking time necessary. This felt like the next best thing. Part of her was tempted to start singing the song from “Titanic”, but the rest of her persuaded it not to.

Without noticing, they had got quite high up now. George had almost forgotten that Amy was on the broom and was flying around as he would if he was on his own, swerving round imaginary people and even pretending to hit bludgers (a type of quidditch ball; he was a beater, a person in charge of hitting them, when he played at school). One very vigourous imaginary hit caused him to wobble on the broom. Had it just been him on it, his compensatory action would have rebalanced him. However, because Amy was clinging to his back, her weight was thrown that way too, causing the broom to tip to that side. She waved out her arm that had previously been combing the wind, managing to grip onto the broom. However, George had both hands still on his imaginary bat and so fell. Amy screamed. She couldn't see him hit the ground; the broom had continued to fly on in his absence and it had taken all her concentration to manage to stay on it. She daren't look down or turn around, not wanting to test the limits of her balance. She realised she was fast approaching the line of trees at the edge of the woods; she would soon hit them. She leaned as far as she dared to the left to try and turn the broom. Nothing happened. Another scream escaped her lips. She screwed her eyes closed, but just as impact was due, she felt the broom soar upwards. She clung with all her might, only opening her eyes when it was level again. George was stood a fair distance ahead with his wand raised, looking a bit worse for wear, his left arm held at a strange angle. He guided the broom back down to him. Amy clambered off quite ungracefully and looked at him with shock and concern. There was a large lump on the left side of his forehead. 

"Are you ok?! Should I call for help? That bump looks nasty, you could have concussion. Let me have a look at your arm, it looks like it could be broken". George gently pushed her away before she could fuss over him further and enter full medical student mode.  
"I'm fine, I've had worse. I'd best pop down to St Mungo's and they'll fix this in a jiffy" (indicating at his arm).  
“St Mungo’s?”  
“Yeah, it’s a wizard hospital. I could theoretically fix my arm myself, but I’m not confident I wouldn’t mess it up. I remember when we were making our Skiving Snackboxes, the spells took quite a bit of perfecting, and I’ve not really dabbled with healing spells since.”  
“Oh, right. Are you able to teleport us there? Can you manage it?”  
“I should be fine apparating, but you should probably stay here. I don’t want you to accidentally get spliced!” He paused, before magically summoning the carrier bag over to him. “I’ll try not to be too long. Why don’t you make a start on the picnic?”  
“What’s spliced mean?”  
“I’ll explain later. I’m sorry about all this. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” With that, he squeezed her hand goodbye and was gone, before she’d had chance to ask him any more questions. Amy was left standing in the field alone, the carrier bag lying by her feet. His broom, which had been hovering where she’d climbed off, fell down onto the ground.

She just stood there is silence for a while, trying to understand everything that had just happened. She was worried about George, but also had so many questions, and she had the feeling like he’d been hiding something from her when he went. 

She looked around, realising she had no idea where she actually was; George had never actually mentioned that (well, he’d said they were off to Scotland, but that didn’t narrow it down much). She was definitely in the middle of nowhere though. She thought to check GPS on her phone, but remembered she’d left it at home, not wanting to risk dropping it from a broomstick and thinking she wouldn’t need it. She cursed to herself. There was almost no chance of her getting home on her own; she was dependant on George coming back for her. That unsettled her. She’d been letting him take the lead in the relationship, organise everything, but now she thought about it, he was totally in control. Everywhere they went, he’d magicked them there, and every time they met, she had to wait for him to come. It was always reliant on him and his magic. She had no way of contacting him; he didn’t have a phone, he didn’t have Facebook, he probably didn’t have email. She didn’t even know his address, so if she wanted to, she couldn’t even send him a letter (and she doubted whether royal mail delivered to magical streets anyway). There was a large power imbalance in their relationship, but she’d been so swept up in the newness of it all, she’d never properly stopped to think about it until now.

She sat down and decided to take her mind off it by having a look at what food George had brought. She didn’t know what the time was, probably too early for lunch, but she decided to start eating anyway. She unpacked the bag; there was some kind of pasties, some sandwiches (ham it appeared when she peaked inside them), some sausages, crisps, weird looking chocolate bars (that looked like they might be the wizard equivalent of a Freddo), apples, and a couple of cans of coke. She wondered to herself whether wizards usually drank coke, or whether he’d bought it for her especially. She felt bad; she’d been angry at him in her head, when he’d only ever been caring towards her, and he was injured. If she wanted to be with him, she’d have to make this work, find a way around the problems them being from different worlds would bring. 

She thought about the different worlds thing, and all the things he’d shown her magic could do so far. He’d said that they need to keep magic secret, and she’d not thought much about it, but now she found herself wondering what magic could do, and what effect that could have on her ordinary non-magic world. Particularly the idea of magically healing. They’d briefly discussed it the other evening, but she hadn’t thought about it much since. At the time, she had thought of bone healing as a cool gimmick; convenient but not massively important. But remembering the shocking statistics of the mortality associated with hip fractures in the elderly, and other things she’d learnt about orthopaedics, she suddenly realised the power of what wizards could really do. Plus, bone healing might well just be the tip of the iceberg; she imagined there was so much more wizard healers could do. As a medical student, she’d seen there is much modern medicine can do, but there’s still so much it struggles with. If magic could heal so many of those people, save so many lives, reduce suffering and morbidity, why doesn’t it? Keeping magic a secret when it was just cool tricks that would make life a bit more convenient was one thing, but when it could save lives? Amy felt rather uncomfortable, put off from her food. She put down the sandwich she was halfway through eating. Maybe this was the reason George didn’t want her to come with him to the hospital. The thing she felt he’d been withholding before her left. Maybe he didn’t want her to see the extent of what wizard healing can do, only to be told (for whatever reason it is that wizards keep it secret) that she couldn’t use it. Maybe he didn’t want her to feel the comparative futility of medicine, when it was something she was dedicating her life to. That was kind, she guessed, that he was trying to spare her from that, but it didn’t change things if it was true (which her gut said it was). This morning had opened her eyes far more than she’d been expecting. It didn’t mean massive changes for their relationship, but it was the end of the beginning; the blissful naivety. From now on, she would always have to try and accept the complications that came with their relationship. Like star-crossed lovers, their respective pasts meant their futures would be fraught with difficulties they would have to overcome if they wanted to stay together.

Time passed, and Amy grew more impatient, and concerned. She didn’t know how long it took to magically heal a bone, but had imagined it would be instantaneous, like other magic spells she’d seen. Why wasn’t George back? What if his injuries were worse than he’d let on? What if he hadn’t managed to get to St Mungo’s; he could have been “spliced”, whatever that was? 

She packed up the rest of the food back into the bag (she had set it out, ready for him to come back and eat his share, but staring at it was making her uncomfortable (and despite the uneasy feeling in her stomach, tempted to keep eating it). She was half wondering about trying her luck hiking away, when she heard the familiar “crack” sound. She turned towards it, ecstatic that George had returned. But it wasn’t George standing there. It was a different guy; around George’s age, but definitely not George.  
“Hi! So you must be Amy then?” the guy asked her, walking towards her. Amy backed away nervously.  
“Who are you, what’s going on?”  
“I’m Lee. I’m George’s mate. I said I’d come take you back home since he’s still busy being a pansy.” He watched the apprehensive doubt on Amy’s face. “Oh, come on. Please don’t tell me that George hasn’t mentioned me!? If so, I bet it’s because he’s worried you’d hear about me and instantly fall for me instead!” Amy thought back; now he mentioned it, she did recall him mentioning a friend called Lee, and she felt like maybe she had seen him in one of the pictures on George’s wall.   
“Is he alright?”  
“Oh yeah, he’s fine. He’s had far worse. He’d have come himself; he didn’t want to leave you stuck here any longer, but Mungo’s were reluctant to let him go apparate off quite yet. He sends his apologies for the day being ruined. But I mean, I’ve definitely been on dates that have gone worse than this, so count yourself lucky. There was one where it turned out my date had drunk polyjuice potion and was in fact…” He cut himself off at this point. “Actually, maybe you don’t want to hear that story. But I have some good George stories I’ll tell you sometime.” He went and picked up George’s broom off the ground. He gestured at the bag of picnic food, “Do you want that, or should I take it back for him?”  
“Oh, yeah, I’ve already eaten, he might as well have his share. It was him that brought it after all.”  
“Ok, well have you got all your stuff? Let’s be getting you home.”

Amy felt weird taking Lee’s hand so he could apparate her home. Hand holding often feels quite an intimate gesture. She wasn’t sure if the fact she’d never met Lee before made it feel more or less awkward. But it was a necessary part of apparition, and as they spun into nothingness, she clung on tight.


	7. Family Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George goes round to the Burrow for Sunday dinner

Chapter seven- Family Dinner  
George walked into the kitchen at the Burrow, arriving for Sunday lunch as he did most weeks. Mrs Weasley came over from the stove to embrace her son, holding him still to inspect him with a concerned look. George cringed, and Ginny smirked at him from her seat at the kitchen table.  
“She heard about your trip to St Mungo’s yesterday,” his sister explained (but George could have guessed that anyway).  
“I don’t even know why I bother coming here, since you all seem to manage to know everything that goes on in my life anyway!” George joked, exasperated.  
“What were you thinking, taking her out on a broom?! You could have both been seriously hurt!” his mother berated him.  
“He was showing off to his muggle girlfriend, that’s what’s he was thinking!” his brother Ron interjected.  
“You’re clearly out of practice at flying since you stopped playing quidditch!” Ginny added.  
“Well, not all of us can be professional quidditch players,” George retorted. He looked around the kitchen, looking for an excuse to change the topic. “Where’s everyone else?”  
“Dad dragged Harry off to the shed to show him who-knows-what, and I think Charlie went for a nosy too,” Ginny told him, in a tone suggesting she’d given up asking what new wonder her father wanted to ask her husband’s opinion on.  
“Hermione can’t make it, she’s got something on with work,” Ron added.  
“Work? It’s a Sunday!” George exclaimed jokily, “I would have thought being married to you might have finally worn out her over-enthusiasm! Or are you the reason she spends so much time at work…?”  
“Bill says they’ve got something on this week,” Mrs Weasley added, before Ron could get a retort in. “Percy’s meant to be coming though.”  
“He’ll arrive at 1pm on the dot, I bet you,” Ron muttered,  
“Ok then, five sickles that he gets here after one,” George suggested, holding a hand out towards Ron to seal the bet. His mother whacked his arm with a wooden spoon she’d picked up to stir the food.  
“I will not have you boys gambling under my roof!”  
“What’s going on?” asked Mr Weasley nervously, entering the kitchen, but looking like he considered backing back out again when he heard his wife shouting.  
“They were betting on what time Percy will get here,” Ginny explained.  
“Oh, it’ll be any minute,” Charlie chipped in, following his father into the room (with Harry behind him), “I can’t imagine him tolerating being late, even if it is just for us.”  
“Is he bringing erm… ?” Mr Weasley started to ask, getting stuck when he realised he couldn’t remember the name of his son’s girlfriend.  
“Audrey,” his wife corrected him, “No, he said he wasn’t this week.”  
“That’s a pity,” Ron commented, “Percy’s less of a bore when she’s around…”  
“Ron!” his mother scalded him.

Just then they heard the door open and Percy walked in. They all went silent. Ron looked at his watch and nudged George; it was exactly 1 o’clock.   
“Good afternoon everyone,” Percy greeted them, looking slightly worried at their silence. He accepted a hug from his mother with a slight look of discomfort. The rest of the family all muttered greetings. They dispersed into separate conversations, being interrupted now and again by Mrs Weasley giving them instructions to help set up for dinner.

Whilst they were sat down eating, the conversation returned again to the topic of George and Amy, and the broomstick incident.  
“So you have to be a witch or wizard to fly a broom?” Charlie asked, after hearing about how the broom had paid no attention to Amy when she had tried to steer it away from the trees after George fell off, “I never knew that.”  
“Neither did I, but apparently it’s the case,” George replied.  
“So what did she say after all that?” Ginny asked, “I imagine she’s not keen on going on a broomstick again.”  
“We never really got chance to talk about it.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Well, after I’d rescued her from the broom, I pretty much went straight to St Mungo’s. And then Lee went and apparated her back home.”  
“What, you didn’t see her after all that? You just sent Lee?”  
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to leave her stuck there any longer, and I was stuck at Mungo’s for ages.”  
“But didn’t you go meet up with her after you got out?”  
“I thought she might be busy. I sent an owl saying we’ll meet tomorrow evening.”  
“You sent an owl!? You do know muggles don’t use owls right?”  
“Yeah, but how else was I to contact her? And she clearly got it, because she replied.”  
“What did she say?”  
“Ok.” Half the room sighed knowingly at that. “What?” George asked.  
“She’s pissed.” Ginny told him.  
“What, no she’s not.” George disagreed, but Ron gave him a nodding expression implied he agreed with their sister.  
“You started showing off on your broom, nearly got both of you killed, abandoned her in the middle of nowhere, then sent a guy she’s never met to collect her. Then she replied to your message with ‘ok.’. I guarantee you, she’s pissed off at you,” Ginny explained.  
“You missed out the part about the owl,” Charlie added, joining in, “I imagine she may have not appreciated you sending a random bird of prey round to her flat when she wasn’t expecting it.”  
“Flowers,” Ron advised, “I suggest you bring flowers when you pick her up on Monday…”

“So, when are we going to get to meet this Amy?” his mum asked as George was preparing to leave.  
“Not yet. Particularly if she is apparently annoyed with me. The way to get back in her good books will not be to subject her to all this.” He gestured around the room (although half his family had actually already left).  
“What do you mean by that?”  
“Let him be, Molly,” his dad interjected, “he’ll introduce her to us when he’s ready. I would like to meet her though. I’d like to ask her all about this muggle ‘medicine’. Like those stitches. Do you remember when I tried them after…” He stopped abruptly after noticing the look on his wife’s face. She had very much disapproved of the experimentation on his wounds after he was attacked by a snake outside the Department of Mysteries a few years ago.  
“But do bring her round soon, George dear,” his mother added, returning her face to one of affection, “It could just be a small dinner, just me, your father and you two.”  
“I’ll consider it…” George replied uncommittedly, mainly just to get her to drop the subject for now. He nodded goodbye, threw some floo powder into the fire and stepped in, and in an instant he was alone, back in his flat. He sat and thought over everything his family had said.


	8. Chapter Eight- Truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy and George have a bit of an argument, and he tells he some of the story of his past.

Chapter eight- truths  
Amy stood in the rain, waiting for George to arrive. His note said he’d pick her up at 7pm; it hadn’t said where so she’d assumed he meant round the back of her block of flats again. He said they needed to find somewhere else to meet and she wished he had done; she was wearing a coat but was still being soaked. When she saw the weather, she was tempted to wait inside, or even wait in her flat and make him come up. But she’d decided she‘d better wait there, where he’d be expecting her. He hadn’t told her what his plans for the evening were either; she hadn’t known what to wear. It all felt like a bit of a mess, like their relationship had suddenly got tangled.

George apparated in, looking a little bit awkward, holding a bouquet of yellow flowers which didn’t appear to be appreciating the battering the rain started giving them. They greeted each other slightly hesitantly.  
“So…” George began, uncertainly, “How are you? I’m sorry about how the other day ended up…” He looked down, remembering the flowers and presenting them to Amy.  
“Shouldn’t we go inside somewhere first, before we start chatting?”  
“Yes, of course. Where should we go? We could go back to mine…”  
“Let’s just go up to my flat for now, since we’re here,” Amy told him, grabbing his hand and pulling him back towards the building entrance, “We can decide what to do afterwards in the dry.”

Amy hung her wet coat on the radiator, and took George’s coat from him to do the same. He got his wand out, and used it to dry the coats, before drying Amy and himself (he thought it best to demonstrate what he was doing on the coats first, rather than just pointing his wand straight at Amy). She lightened up, now she was dry again, and popped into her kitchen to find something to put the flowers in, returning with a large glass (as she didn’t possess a vase).  
“Thanks for these, they’re lovely,” she smiled. “How are you, are you all ok now after the accident on Saturday?”  
“All fixed up! It’s just my ego that’s bruised. As I said, I’m sorry about all that. Guess I’m not as good on a broomstick as I once was. And I’m sorry about leaving you out there on your own, and not picking you up myself. My family all agreed that was a bit of a dick move.”  
“You discussed it all with your family?”  
“Well, not all of it,” George started, starting to worry that Amy considered that a dick move too, “but they’d heard about my visit to St Mungo’s, so wanted to know what happened. You don’t mind, do you?”  
“No, I guess it’s just… it’s just that I can’t really discuss it with my family, can I? Like what am I going to tell them, about us?”  
“Oh, yeah, I guess that is complicated. You shouldn’t really tell them anything about magic, not at the moment.”  
“I can’t tell them about magic ever. They wouldn’t understand. It would destroy their world view. My parents don’t watch anything sci-fi or fantasy etc. because it’s ‘not believable’. If they can’t imagine something like that being true, even for the context of a work of fiction, there’s no way they’ll be able to deal with the concept of magic being real. If I told them, they wouldn’t believe me, they’d think I was joking, or I was crazy, and if you showed them, my dad would probably have a heart attack, and my mum would scream and try and burn you at the stake or something!”  
“Oh…”  
“Yeah. You can see how this complicates things. I don’t like lying to them, but I’m going to have to. Potentially forever. And it’s not just the straight up not telling them you’re a wizard. I can’t even tell them about you at all at the minute.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because one of the first questions my mum is going to ask is what does he do?”  
“Just tell them I own a shop?”  
“Yeah, but then she’s going to want to know where it is, she’ll want to see if it has a website, and she’ll try to look at it on google maps. You don’t get it, magic gets into everything! All I’m going to get is questions, which I won’t be able to answer! They’ll want to know what happened to your ear! What do I tell them, that you lost it in an explosion or whatever bullshit story you tried to tell me!? You haven’t even told me the true story yet! The more I think, the further and further away the truth seems to be! All the lies I’m going to have to tell, all the secrets I’m going to have to keep, and all the secrets you haven’t even told me yet!” Amy stopped to catch her breath, and they looked at each other, both surprised at the power of the rant that had just escaped her.  
“I didn’t say I’d lost my ear in an explosion,” George said quietly. Amy remembered now that story had been about his brother’s death, and couldn’t think of anything to say. “But you’re right,” George continued, “I don’t know what we can do about all that, we’ll have to work it out, make it work. But I haven’t told you the story of how I lost my ear, the story about the wizarding war, and it’s time I did. That’s one tick in truth’s boxes we can make today at least.” 

He walked over to her sofa and sat down. After a few seconds, Amy sighed and did the same.  
“So it’s kind of a long story,” George started, “I can’t tell you it all tonight, but I’ll try to give you the gist of it, the important points.” He paused, wondering where to begin. “So, five years ago, there was a wizarding war. Well, it had been going on for a while, although it was kind of on hold for most of my childhood. Or sometimes people call them separate wars. Whichever. All this chaos was led by one particular dark wizard. We didn’t refer to him by his name, people called him ‘You-Know-Who’. Even now, people avoid saying his name. But I’ll say it now. It was Lord Voldemort. Well, technically that still wasn’t even his name, not his birth name, but that’s what he decided to call himself. He left his past and his true name behind him when he started trying to rise to power. Anyway, yeah, so he started recruiting followers, they called themselves ‘Death Eaters’, and he started trying to take over, through a regime of violence and intimidation. They killed people who stood in their way. But then he heard of a prophecy, that a baby would be born who would defeat him. Details in the prophecy led him to believe that baby was Harry.”  
“So that’s why you said they call Harry ‘the chosen one’?”  
“Well, it was what happened then. James and Lily, Harry’s parents, hid with him from Voldemort. But they ended up being betrayed, and Voldemort found them one evening, when Harry was just one year old. Voldemort killed Harry’s father, but told his mother he’d let her live if she stood aside so he could kill Harry. But she didn’t, so he killed her. But this meant that because his mother had died to save him, out of love for her son, when Voldemort tried to kill Harry, the spell rebounded and all but killed Voldemort. Well, technically he kind of was dead. It’s just that it turned out he’d made these special magical items that stopped his soul being destroyed along with his body. It’s kind of complicated. But anyway, the upshot is, it appeared to the wizarding world that Voldemort was gone for good. And he was gone, for a decade or so. His Death Eaters disbanded; some were sent to Azkaban, a wizard jail, some managed to blend their way back into society and pretend they had nothing to do with him. We had peace, relatively.

It was when I was in my third year at Hogwarts that the first proper proof Voldemort was back appeared. That was the year Harry, Ron and Hermione started. I joke at them that before they came, the biggest cause of chaos at Hogwarts was me and Fred. But they seemed to manage to end up in mortal peril at least once a year, normally Voldemort-related peril. Yeah, anyway, that year they discovered that Quirrell, our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher had been hiding Voldemort on the back of his head…”  
“What?”  
“Don’t ask… So they managed to stop him coming back that year, but he kept trying. The following year our Ginny ended up getting kind of possessed and nearly killed by a sort of ghost of teenage Voldemort…”  
“Let me guess, it’s complicated?”  
“Yeah. Then when we were in our sixth year, Voldemort managed to actually get his body back. Harry saw it happen, but because the Ministry were idiots and decided to stick their heads in the sand, they didn’t believe him and started chatting shit about Harry to discredit him. That’s how my family ended up in a secret group working to take down Voldemort, called ‘The Order of the Phoenix’. We spent the summer living at Grimmauld Place; that’s where Harry and Ginny live now, but at the time it belonged to Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather, and to be honest it was a bit of a shithole. Stuff happened, Dad almost got killed by Voldemort’s snake, this bitch of a head teacher took over Hogwarts, Fred and I left the school in the most amazing fashion, if I do say so myself, and then there was this battle at the Ministry against the Death Eaters (which unfortunately we weren’t invited to), and the result was the world finally realised Voldemort was back.

That was when things really started getting dark. Voldemort and his Death Eaters started spreading fear, torturing and killing people, trying to take over. Dumbledore, Hogwarts headmaster and leader of the Order of the Phoenix, was killed. Then came the night I lost my ear.

Harry had been living at his aunt and uncle’s since his parents died. Well, officially living there, since he spent as little time there as possible; students stay at Hogwarts during term time anyway, and he spent most of the holidays at ours. But he had to stay officially living there, because living under the roof of his mother’s blood, her estranged sister, meant that he was protected by the complex protection his mother invoked when she died to protect him. But that protection would fail when he came of age, so we had to get him out of there first. But Voldemort had a lot of influence at the Ministry by this point, so there was enchantments preventing apparation, use of the floo network, or portkeys being used, so the only way was through the air, but that would leave him vulnerable to attack.”  
“What’s the floo network, and portkeys?” Amy interrupted  
“They’re other methods of wizard transportation. I’ll tell you about them later. Anyway, so we had to get him out by air, but knew as soon as we set off, the Death Eaters would attack us. Therefore, Mad-eye Moody, our leader that evening, decided that in order to confuse the Death Eaters, there would be seven Harry Potter’s leaving Privet Drive that evening.”  
“What!?”  
“You see, there’s a magical potion called Polyjuice…”  
“Oh, yeah, I think Lee mentioned that…”  
“What did he say?” George asked, slightly worried about what stories his mate had told his girlfriend.  
“He didn’t say much. It was something about a bad date I think. He stopped before he finished the anecdote.”  
“Good. But anyway, Polyjuice can be used to make someone take on someone else’s appearance for a short while, so me, Fred, Ron, Hermione, my brother Bill’s wife Fleur, and a guy called Mundungus all used it, so we would look like Harry, then we would all fly out of there with a partner. Two went on Thestrals: Bill and Fleur, and Hermione and Kingsley Shacklebolt, who’s now the Minister for Magic.” This time he anticipated Amy’s question and put a finger up to stop her before she interrupted. “A Thestral is a magical creature, slightly like a horse, with wings. They can only be seen by those who have witnessed death. Four went on broomsticks; Mundungus and Mad-eye, Dad and Fred, Ron and Tonks, and I went with Lupin. Lupin was a great guy. He saved my life that night. He taught us at Hogwarts for a year, but he had to leave when people found out he was a werewolf.”  
“You’re shitting me right? A werewolf!?”  
“Yes, he was a werewolf, but he was a really nice man.”  
“I’m not disapproving of werewolves, I’m asking if you are being serious when you say they exist!”  
“Muggles might believe werewolves are myths, but they’re real alright. Think about it, you thought wizards were a myth until last week!”  
“What are you going to tell me next, that vampires exist too!?”  
“They do.”  
“What, so not only are you friends with werewolves, but you’re friends with vampires too?”  
“I don’t believe I’ve ever actually met a vampire, but they do exist.”  
“What about ghosts?”  
“Yep, there was a few of them hanging round our school. Each house had one as a kind of mascot.”  
“Unicorns?”  
“Yep.”  
“Giants.”  
“Yep. In fact, Hagrid, who I was going to mention in a minute if you’ll let me carry on with the story, is half-giant…”  
“The Loch Ness monster?”  
“I’m not sure about that one. It could well be some kind of aquatic magical creature. The mermaids in the lake at Hogwarts might well know…”  
“Mermaids!?”  
“Yep. There’s a whole load of magical creatures that you probably believed were myths, and I imagine a fair lot more than you haven’t even heard off. Now please can I continue being honest with you about my backstory, or otherwise we’ll be here all evening?”  
“Fine, you can fill me in properly about them all another time.”  
“Yep. So where was I? Oh yes, I was telling you about the pairings. Yeah, so the last pair was the real Harry, with Hagrid- the half-giant I mentioned- on a flying motorbike.” [He gave her a look to say, ‘please don’t interrupt’]. “So we all set off, but, although it was meant to be top secret, the Death Eaters knew, and they attacked us. What’s more, Voldemort himself was there. We all got scattered. Mad-eye was killed. Voldemort managed to work out who the real Harry was and went after him. They crash landed but luckily they weren’t seriously hurt. Now, my ear. That was cut off in the madness of the mid-air battle, by a guy called Snape. He had been a teacher at Hogwarts, and was a bit of a dick. Well, at the time, I thought he was even more than that, because he was fighting with the Death Eaters and I thought his spell was an attempt to kill me. However, I found out later, after his death, that Snape had actually been a double agent in Voldemort’s service, secretly working for Dumbledore (even after he “murdered” Dumbledore). He’d actually been aiming the spell at another Death Eater’s wand, to stop them from cursing Lupin, but missed. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time, so was rather pissed. Well, to be honest, I was probably too busy trying not to bleed out or fall off the broom to be pissed.”  
“Oh.” Amy said, pausing for a few seconds, taking it all in, “So that’s how you lost your ear?”  
“That’s how I lost my ear.”  
“And… and is that how Fred… died?” she asked timidly.  
“No. That happened later.” George sighed and continued his story. “So after that, we went back to my parents’, for Bill and Fleur’s wedding, which took place there shortly after. Things were bad before, but that was the night they got really, really bad. I remember seeing Kingsley’s lynx Patronus appear in the middle of the reception, and the message it conveyed. ‘The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.’” [He paused for a few seconds for dramatic effect]. “Scrimgeour was the Minister for Magic at the time. We weren’t exactly his biggest fans, but at least he was against Voldemort too.”  
“And what’s a Patronus?”  
“It’s kind of a magical entity formed of light that wizards can summon. It can help protect you from some things, and the Order used them to communicate. Each person’s Patronus takes the form of a specific animal.”  
“What animal is your Patronus?” Amy asked. George paused, before replying.  
“It was a coyote…”  
“Was?”  
“I’ve not made a Patronus in since…” He didn’t finish that sentence. “I haven’t had to. I haven’t tried.”  
“Why? Can you make one now, I’d like to see?”  
“No, I’m sorry.” He looked heartbroken. “I can’t. You see, Patronuses take a lot of energy to summon. A lot of emotional energy, a lot of positive emotion. You have to think about your happiest memories. And well…” He didn’t finish that sentence either. He didn’t have to. Amy understood why his happiest memories might be tinged with sadness too. She watched a tear roll down his cheek. One rolled down her own too.

After a few seconds, George brushed away the tear from his face, almost as if he was pretending it wasn’t there, and continued the tale.  
“So after that, there was panic in the wedding marquee. People trying to get away before the Death Eaters arrived. I’ll spare you a lot of the details, but the next few months were hell for wizarding kind. Voldemort’s regime had taken over practically everything; the Ministry, Hogwarts, the wizard press. People had a choice; follow Voldemort, try to go into hiding, or die. That of course, was if you were a pureblood, or at least a half-blood. They tried to round up the muggleborn witches and wizards, accused them of ‘stealing’ their magic, imprisoned them, and killed many of them. Anyone who disagreed was locked up, tortured and killed. They went round torturing and killing a lot of muggles too.”  
“Why haven’t I heard of this? If there was a war going on in Britain, with such atrocities being committed, why didn’t we hear about it?”  
“It was covered up, or muggles put things down to accidents etc. If you check back in your newspapers from around that time, you’ll probably find a fair few events that were caused by Voldemort and his regime.”  
“So, what did you do, during this time?”  
“We mainly hid. The remains of the Order were trying to organise some kind of resistance, but there wasn’t much we could do. Most of our hope still lay on Harry, the ‘Chosen One’, that wherever he was, he had a plan, and was working to take down Voldemort.”  
“Wherever he was?”  
“Harry, Ron and Hermione disappeared on the day of Bill’s wedding, in the chaos after Kingsley’s message. Occasionally we heard rumours; that they’d been hiding out at Grimmauld Place, that they’d broken into the Ministry, but never really knew for sure. We had to take reassurance from the assumption no news was good news; if Voldemort and his army had found them or killed them, we’d have heard. 

Then one night we heard they were at Hogwarts, and that everyone should come and help them fight Voldemort. That was the news we needed. Finally a chance to do something. To fight for our freedom, for our way of life, for our lives. That was the night of the Battle of Hogwarts.” He paused. This was going to be the hardest bit of the story to tell. “At first, we weren’t sure what to do. Turns out Harry hadn’t planned on us all turning up at all; he hadn’t been expecting there would be a battle. But both armies were amassing, and it was clear there would be. Harry needed us to buy him time, so he could finish his mission, destroy what needed to be destroyed (the magical items containing Voldemort’s soul), so that Voldemort could be killed once and for all. 

My whole family was there. Even Percy. He’d become estranged from the family, sticking with the Ministry back when they’d started speaking against Harry a couple of years before. But he’d seen sense, and that night he came back. I’m glad he did. We’ve never been close, even though he’s one of the closest in age to me and Fred. We’re very different. But I’m glad that… that he and Fred were able to make up… before it was too late.

They were fighting together, side by side, when it happened. They’d just come across Ron, Harry and Hermione too. Apparently Fred was laughing when it happened. When the spell hit him. Percy of all people had just made a joke. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him make a joke. But he made one then, and I’m glad. I wasn’t there. I was fighting elsewhere in the castle. But I’m glad Fred died laughing. It just seems right. We were always making jokes. I wish you could have heard him, seen us together. I’ve kept going, kept working on the shop, inventing new things without him, but it’s not the same. It’ll never be the same. Nothing was ever the same after that night.

That’s not to say things didn’t change for the better too that night. Of course they did. Voldemort was defeated. We won. 

At first it seemed like that wasn’t going to happen. Part the way through the battle there was a pause. That’s when I found out about Fred. We were all congregating in the Great Hall. People hugging each other, reuniting with loved ones, discovering people they cared about had fallen. When I got there, Mum was trying to berate Ginny for being out in the fighting- she was meant to be waiting safely out of the way- but she was too pleased to see her to say much. As soon as she saw any of us, she was grabbing us into a hug. Even Bill’s wife Fleur, who she didn’t like that much at the time. We kept watching anxiously for more members of our family to return. Seeing friends come back, injured, dead. They brought in Lupin and Tonks. I mentioned them before I think. They’d just had a baby, Teddy. He was waiting for them at home. And here they were, lying there, dead. Seeing them shook me hard.

But then I saw Percy staggering through the door, struggling to support a figure over his shoulder. His face was red, tear-stained. It seemed he couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with any of us. Bill and Charlie dashed over to help him. Dad pulled Mum into an embrace, as a harrowing sob escaped her. I just stood there. I couldn’t move. I knew who Percy was holding. I knew what it meant. I don’t know if I knew before. We’d always been so connected, but in the chaos of the battle, it’s hard to pay attention to feelings. But in that moment, I definitely knew. I couldn’t comprehend it, but I knew it. Without any doubt. My twin was gone.”

Amy held his hand but said nothing, staring caringly into his face as tears welled in his eyes, and gushed down her cheeks. George took a minute to compose himself then continued, wanting to complete the story.

“After what felt like an age, we were all called outside. Voldemort and his Death Eaters were converging there, gloating. Hagrid was marched up, tears on his face and Harry’s lifeless body in his giant arms.”  
“Harry was dead?” asked Amy, confused.  
“It seemed so. Voldemort proclaimed it was so. To be honest the events at this point have always been a bit of a blur for me. I wasn’t really taking any of it in. Voldemort monologued and gloated. I remember seeing Neville, a guy from school who’d always been quite timid, stand up to him, summon the sword of Gryffindor and kill Voldemort’s snake, Nagini though. That act turned out to be far more significant than it appeared. Not only did Neville summon his inner courage, showing he was a true Gryffindor, but killing the snake was the last string needing to be cut to make Voldemort mortal, and in doing so, he set the stage for Harry to be able to destroy him, once and for all.

In the confusion, Harry’s ‘body’ had disappeared. We ended up back in the hall, and the fighting started again. Then Harry appeared, from underneath his invisibility cloak, alive and well. He and Voldemort duelled. Harry won. And that was that. Voldemort’s reign of terror was finally over. We faced the dawn, in grief, but in freedom. And we began to rebuild our world. Set right what had been done wrong.

So there you have it. Now you know,” George finished. “Of course, there’s so much more I could say, but I think that’s enough for one evening.” Amy just nodded, unable to think of a better response.


	9. Chapter nine- Formal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George and Amy go to a dinner at her college with some of her friends

Chapter nine- Formal

After a while of both quietly reflecting on what had been said, they came to the realisation that they hadn’t actually eaten, and the evening was drawing on. Going out for food didn’t feel right considering the circumstances and the emotional depth of the story they had just shared, so Amy ended up making them chicken nuggets and oven chips (the nearest thing to a meal she could find in her kitchen, as she hadn’t been to the supermarket for a few days). She was a little embarrassed that was the best she could come up with, but George was strangely excited, not having tried frozen processed foodstuffs before. After they had eaten they reluctantly returned to the conversation from the beginning of the evening; the complications of their relationship, and what they were going to do about them.

 

“Look, we’ll make it work, ok?” George reassured. “Plenty of wizards and muggles have had relationships before. I’ll speak to some people, try to get some advice.”

“Ok. I’ll have a think too, see if I can come up with any ideas.” She paused. “But how would you feel about meeting a few of my friends? It’s just that a couple of them know that I’ve been seeing you a few times, not that I’ve told them anything about you, and they suggested it might be nice if we went to formal sometime.”

“Formal?”

“It’s a dinner they have in my college. They’re pretty frequent, but I don’t usually go because I hardly ever go into the college itself now I’m in clinical school and based outside the town centre. It’s nothing special, but it’s quite nice, and the food can be quite good sometimes. If you don’t want to go, it’s cool. We could do something else. Or you don’t have to meet my friends right now. But I think hopefully they shouldn’t ask anything we can’t answer, and if I hide you from them for too long, they’ll start getting suspicious. Like thinking I’m secretly dating a celebrity or something. That’s what they thought Steph might be doing. Yeah, turns out her guy wasn’t famous. He was just married.”

“Oh, right,” George replied, not entirely sure what to say. “But sure, yeah, we can go to this dinner if you want. When is it?”

“We’re probably best off if I have a look at the menus for some of the upcoming dinners. There’s normally some rogue ones we definitely want to avoid. And I need to see when people are free.”

“Ok, sure. Just let me know. I’m generally free most evenings. In fact, meeting you has drastically improved my social calendar.”

“Same. If I wasn’t meeting you, I’d be spending most of my evenings trying to study or watching TV to be honest.”

 

They agreed to meet up again in a couple of days, said goodnight, and parted ways, with both having things to look into, and the dilemma of regarding the cover-stories for their relationship to think about.

 

George hadn’t made much progress when they met again, but Amy had managed to organise the dinner. She told him about it whilst they ate Chinese take-out that they’d ordered (George had offered to apparate to collect it, but Amy had joked at him to stop being lazy, and the pair of them walked to collect it).

“How’s Friday sound? There’s still tickets left and it’s burger night. I know it might not sound very formal, but trust me, they make a damn good burger. Plus dessert is sticky toffee pudding and I love me some sticky toffee pudding.”

“Me too. Sounds good.”

 

So it was arranged, and George met Amy in their usual meeting place, behind the block of flats, on Friday evening (they still hadn’t organised a better meeting place yet). The sight of her in her gown (it was tradition for members of the college to wear them for formal) shocked him at first, because it bared more than a passing resemblance to wizard robes. But he got over the surprise fairly quickly, and managed to complement her dress quite smoothly. They went to meet some of her friends at the bus stop (a couple of them lived in town, and were meeting them there).

“I often cycle into town,” she told him, “But I’m not in these heels.” They were quite high (though he was still considerably taller).

 

Amy introduced him to her friends. They seemed nice, and George managed to make not-too-awkward small talk with them during the bus journey (he didn’t tell Amy, but he’d been researching muggle current affairs earlier on that day, in the hope of not getting totally caught out in conversation). They asked how he and Amy met. The two of them had agreed before to try and stick to the truth where possible for convenience sake, so he told them that they got trapped in a lift together and just got chatting (skipping out the part of how they’d escaped).

 

When they arrived at the college and entered the dining hall, again George got wizarding vibes.

“It nearly looks like the dining hall at my school!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, where did you go to school?” one girl asked. (What was her name? Katy?)

“A boarding school in Scotland.”

“You must have missed your family being at school up there?”

“Well, to be fair, a lot of my family was there with me. Well, my siblings. They all went too, though not all at the same time.”

“All? How many siblings do you have?”

“I had five brothers and a sister.”

“Had?” she questioned nervously.

“My twin, Fred, he passed away a few years ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

 

What might have become an awkward silence was disturbed by the gong sounding to signal grace, and afterwards the conversation moved on to something else.

“Has Amy told you the obligatory dining hall facts yet?” another friend asked whilst they were mid-way through the starter.

“No?”

“Well, you can’t dine here without hearing them. It’s an unsaid rule,” she announced with an amused smile. “This dining hall dates from the late 13th century, making it the oldest secular building in Europe still used for its original purpose.” Amy and Katy (?) also joined in for the latter end of that sentence, making it clear they were all very used to reciting that particular fact.

“Oldest secular _muggle_ building in Europe still used for its original purpose…” George whispered smugly in Amy’s ear.

“Really? Are you wizards trying to claim our title?” she whispered back.

“No _trying_ about it. It’s our title by rights. Hogwarts was founded around the 11 th century.”

“Oh, fuck you wizards,” she replied, but without any malice, “next thing you’ll be telling me is that this wasn’t the second building in the country to get electric lighting.”

“I don’t know about that, but I do know that’s one thing Hogwarts definitely can’t claim. It still doesn’t have electric lighting.”

“Really!?”

“Yeah,” he gestured at the candles on the table, “this room is giving off a very Hogwarts-ish aesthetic.”

 

At this point, they were distracted by the sound of a splash into both of their wine glasses.

“There!” announced the guy opposite (John?) proudly, “That serves you two right for whispering away! Save it for the bedroom!” George looked at his glass and saw there seemed to be a muggle coin in the bottom of it. He looked at Amy questioningly.

“We’ve been pennied,” she explained. “If someone drops a penny in your glass, it means you have to down it.” George shrugged and threw his drink back, earning some cheers from the rest of their group. It’s safe to say, through the course of the evening, pennies ended up in many glasses, and a considerable quantity of wine was drunk.

 

George and Amy waved goodbye to those still in the taxi as they stumbled out of it outside Amy’s block. Amy decided to carry her shoes rather than wear them, so he tried to subtly cast a spell on her feet to prevent her from cutting them on the ground.

“Shush, muggles!” she drunkenly giggled at him in false reprimand, putting one finger on her lips, and wrapping her other arm round his shoulder, slightly whacking him with her heels.

“Don’t worry, I’m a wizard. I know what I’m doing,” he giggled back, with a fake sense of authority. He cracked up into full-on laughter when Amy raised an eyebrow questioning that. Leaning on each other, they got up to her flat without incident.

 

“So that was fun.”

“Yeah, we should do it again sometime.”

“Really?” Amy asked, pleased. “Because I want you to get on with my friends. But I’d understand if you, I don’t know, felt you didn’t have anything in common with them, with them being muggles.”

“I liked your friends. They’re cool. They can drink _a lot_ of wine. And it’s nice hanging out with people who aren’t wizards for a change.”

“Cool.”

 

With that, Amy pushed him against the back of the sofa and they started making out. After a while, George reluctantly pulled away.

“I probably should be heading back soon.”

“Nah, stay. You shouldn’t apparate. You might get smushed.”

“Spliced.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“I’ll explain another time.”

“But seriously, stay if you want. You can sleep here. On the sofa again. Or with me. Just sleep though,” she gave him a no-nonsense stare.

“Just sleep,” he agreed.


End file.
